I agree that expo is not needed and might be counter-productive for a beginner.

Personally, I love having expo on my planes, I tend to run about 50% expo and very high throws. I've tried small amounts of expo, like 15-20% and it wasn't worth the trouble.

Ed's comment about Futaba/Hitech/Polk being reverse from JR is right on, be careful about that one. I set one of my planes with 50% exp in the wrong direction when moving it from a JR to a Polk transmitter. What a surprise! (didn't crash, but it was the touchest plane I'd flown in a long time).