Oh, and I hear from people who have flown them that the Slow stick is a great first plane, primarily since it flies so slow. However I hear it does not handle crashes real well. But I don't know from personal experience.
Based on my first hand experience, the SS is all but bulletproof. The first one I owned was a freebie from a friend of mine who had already bashed everything in the world with it. Last winter I used it to learn indoor flight and it hit everything from steel beams to plywood walls at W.O.T. The only thing I've changed is the gearbox. It still flys today and we use it as a backup plane should we break something on one of the "pretty" ones and can't fix it right away. The only reason I bought a new one is that I'm kind of picky and I like having a shiny new plane to fly. As far as performance goes, you can change the factory "d" gearbox to a "c" and install a 90-70 prop. That spices things up quite a bit. Just a couple more of my cents.
Bud