Doug,
Tell us about the field you'll be flying from the most, is it grass, paved, long, short, high elevation, sea level, etc. IMO, this is what will dictate the turbine you'll fly and have the most fun with. Who wants to repair landing gear every weekend?
For example, I fly from a 500' grass strip with open approaches at 600 feet above sea level. Would a 35 pound scale jet be a good choice? I'm a very experienced flyer so I've lost the training wheels 3 decades ago! Yeah this would be "cool" to have, BUT I'm looking for a turbine model to fly every weekend without hassles. My choice is a BTE Models Reaction 54 all balsa kit. Will do @ 140MPH and slow to a walk for landing. With a "54" class turbine the empty weight will be at 17 pounds. Here's a link

http://www.btemodels.com/intheworks.html

This is what I chose. YOUR decision may be completely different.

BTW... The ROOKIE came in a very close second. The landing gear thing took it out of first place for me.

Dave Rigotti