I am new to this hobby as well as many others, and I debated this question in my head for over two months before I decided what to do: Do you save up $1000.00 or more for a Tamiya with all the gadgets and gizmos, or do you spend about $60.00-$80.00 for a cheaper alternative?
I decided to spend $10 more and get a VS tank
Actually I'm getting two of them so I can have some battles. It will be a couple of more weeks before I will place my order.
The link that Mariodx3 posted, the other legitimate complaints that I have heard, and the bit about illegal frequencies convinced me that the HL tanks just aren't worth the trouble.
http://www.vstank.com/compare/index.html
1/16 would have been nice, but like you I can't afford a Tamiya at this time. Since I'm new to R/C tanks as well, I felt it was better to go with higher quality even if it meant going to a smaller scale.
We are all hobbyists here, and we all tinker with our stuff to make it better, right? I mean, isn't that what it's all about? I know that my HL has a so-so suspension, plastic gears, crappy electronics and certain built in "mistakes". but these things are all correctable. Well, I admit, I have not come up with an alternative suspension idea yet, but I'm working on that... I plan on throwing about $300-$400 dollars at my HL to make it better. Most of that cost will be for electronics.
Why not get a Bandai tank then? You can get the base kits for about $200, and do the upgrades at your leisure. Later this year I'm planning to get a Bandai StuG III and do exactly that.
There's also uncle eBay. I recently saw a partially completed Tamiya King Tiger for sale. The owner died before he could finish it. Final sale price was around $250.