I guess I got lucky. Mine went together quickly, and has been perfect for 6 months now.
You can remove the struts and wing in about 3 minutes. You don't need to remove the landing gear. Just the 2 screws that face rearward (one on each side), and the screws that attach the struts to the wing, and the screw under the fake antenna, that holds the wing down.
I use 1300ma 15C 3S lipo's I get on ebay for about 12 or 13 bucks shipped, and they fit perfectly. I use scotch tape and make a pull tab on the battery, so I don't have to pull on the wires.
I put a male deans plug on the plane, because thats what my cheapie Lipo's come with.
Never had an issue with the control rods. Just set everything at neutral during assembly, and used the sub trims on my DX6i for fine tuning the tx trims to center. Been perfect for 6 months now.
I can't imagine how the tail feathers got warped, but I hear soaking foam parts in hot water makes it go back to it's origional manufactured shape. There's you tube video's about that trick.
I stuck my Orange RX receiver to the side of the fuse, in that area that leads to the cockpit. It does not interfere with battery installation, and I can see the bind light thru the windshield good, I like that.
I didn't need to move any control rod tubes, just slide the wires in and hook em to the ez connectors on the servo arms (after centering the arms on the servo's with the radio gear on of course).
I dunno.... mine has been perfect so far, and i've been flying it almost every day for 6 months.
Im confident that once you get er dialed in, you'll be very happy with it. The hot water soak trick will make your tail parts perfect again.
Just out of curiousity, did you buy it on ebay, or from one of the online stores ? Dennis