I also just recently came back into the hobby due to peer pressure from a co-worker newby rc pilot, even after sitting 10 years idle my old ni-cad stuff cycled up great.
Par for the course is my futaba fg gold series FM, catch alot of flack about that antenna but I don't care I'm old, can't see well and not frugal enough to keep up with the high tech croud lol. I can't see any reason not to use a good ni-cad if you already have it.