My 2cents', Steve. Go digitals, given your options. Superior holding, greater accuracy to return to same point, given same stick movement, MUCH better centering. Now, my comment is based on YOUR constraint of choosing between the two Hitec's you listed.

WRT batteries - digitals consume more mah per movement, basically, so you'll draw more out of a pack in a given flight. When I ran Hitec's, it was fashionable to run them on 4 cell packs; I cannot address the current digitals, but 5 cells with regulators is VERY commonplace.

I believe you WILL notice a very significant improvement in performance in a pattern airplane between conventional servos and digitals.