Any time you start a thread, you can expect it to weave back and forth like that one road in San Francisco before all is said and done.
As far as your radio question, unless someone actually has both and is willing to open them up, you're not going to get an answer based on fact, just biased opinions. What you can pretty much trust is a low dollar radio will have lower quality parts than a higher priced radio will. I bought a two channel stick radio back in 1982 and a four channel stick radio made by the same company in 1986. What I found is that the two channel, which costed around half as much, was night and day cheaper in feel and appearance. Even the gimbals felt cheap compared to the four channel. That said, the two channel used AA batteries for both the transmitter and receiver, lasting about a day while the four used Sanyo made nicad packs that lasted for more than a weekend. Fast forward roughly twenty years, when I went and bought a high end 9 channel computer radio. Again, the difference is unbelievable in the feel of the gimbals and switches as well as the case when I compare it to my four channel.