I had a similar situation, not in the crash itself, but just about everything else. I had a NexSTAR, crashed after flying inverted toward myself (had put about 25-30 flights on it) so I was in the market for something that I was not going to get bored with but at the same time, I hadn't "mastered" my trainer by any stretch of the imagination, so I needed something that still landed slow enough and didn't have bad stall characteristics. I went with MinnFlyer's recommendation on the Midwest Aerobat, and it was a perfect choice! It comes in almost just as slow as the NexSTAR did with the speed brakes and leading edge extensions off (it just doesn't float forever like the NexSTAR did). It is surely not sluggish in the air, it is VERY responsive compared to the NexSTAR. It can go vertical on takeoff with the engine from the NexSTAR (not unlimited, but very good), it flies inverted very stable (doesn't want to flip over like the NexSTAR did when upside down, and just flies like a dream all the way around. It has very good aerobatic abililities as far as I'm concerned, but take that with a grain of salt, considering I only have the NexSTAR to compare it against.

I cannot speak for the Avistar, although I hear nothing but good things about it, but I can speak for the Aerobat, and as far as I'm concerned, it is the "Perfect 2nd Plane" as they (Falcon and Minnflyer's review) said.

As far as not having the time to assemble it, I've already explored this avenue, and after your trainer RTF, I don't think that you're going to find anything even close to as easy to put together. I think once you have your radio and engine, from that point on your putting it together yourself, unless you pay to have someone you know and trust build it for you. The Aerobat, although you have to put on the control horns, servos, engine, glue the wing halves, etc. it is a fairly easy build compared to other ARFs if you have someone with you who has built a plane before (they will speed things up and have tricks for certain things). They say this plane goes together in about 6 hours. Not if you've never built a plane before, but it's not outrageous. I have no idea how easy/hard the Avistar is to build compared to the Aerobat.

The choice is up to you, but I really don't think you can go wrong with either of these 2 planes. The only factor would be which one is more aerobatic since they both handle slow landings and very stable takeoffs very well. I think if your wringin' out either one of them, it's time to move on to a fully aerobatic plane. Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I figured since our situation is so similar, my input may help you. Take it for what it's worth. Let me know if you have any questions.

Joe