I have asked myself the same question and looked around in many places. My options were down to one of the flatouts, the yak 55, and the Eflite Tribute. I haven't been able to get my hands on a flatout and while i waited I got a Tribute from my LHS. Looking at most of the other kits, this one was precut and just about everything done for you. I mean the most completely built rigth out of the box. That is worth a lot in my book because right now I don't have the room to have a lot of building equipment. All I needed was foam safe glue. This was my first 3d plane and I was thoroughly impressed. Flew very well on first flight. Some flex is noticable but I don't know how much it shouldn't have. it is structurally supported with carbon fiber rods. I used a little bit of the foam from the inside of the box used to prevent it from caving in on shipping and made little triangle pieces to make a type of strut for the wing. That was the only thing I thought the Tribute needed in the way of structural reinforcement. I love it and it flys as well as you could expect for zero airfoil. One thing I don't understand is I have like three times as much down elevator authority than up elevator. Even having adjusted the servos to reduce down elevator throw. Not a big deal. I didn't wan't to use four servos (two for ailrons) so I cut into the fuse and stuck one servo to control both ailrons and that worked great. I got say 5-8 flights before I burned out my stock motor though. So I will be upgrading to brushless. I still think the flatouts are going to be great and may still get into that.

My setup:
generic 4ch rx. 4 ch tx.
5amp GWS speed control
gws servos (3).
8.4 and 9.6 750mah Ni-mh
everyting else is stock.

gws pico stick, sturdy birdy, raptor 30, Venom Night ranger, Stinger 10, verious trainer planes (.40 size)