Best bang for ya buck has got to be a RedCat Hurricane XP also known as a Himoto Torpeda Pro. I have had one for serveral months now & its a blast!
Got in an auction on Ebay for $265US. comes with everything. It comes with a high quality team Infinty .27 engine. No not "legal" but one hell of screamer!!
Took it to my LHS where they just about fell over at its quality for the price & the engine alone. Don;t let anyone fool you into thinking these are crap. they are definately not crap. they are exceptionally robust & fast. 99% of All buggies come from the same factories in China in the first place so that "cheap chinese" argument doesn;t hold much weight. They do about 80KPH not 80MPH as ads will say but that I think has more to do with the chinese translation more than anything
I have recently had 2 massive high speed crashes with only one part snapping, the steering mount. There was zero damage to anything else much to my amazement & to the amazement of the LHS.
I've spoken to many experienced users & they reckon its as good as Kyosho or Ofna & infact I know someone that reckons it sh*ts all over his Ofna 9.5!
The only gripe I have is parts are not that readily available in shops here in Oz. But there are many online stores & these are infact much cheaper that the local hobby stores. Checkout RedCat Racing website for more info & plenty of parts & hopups.
So anyway thats my 2 cents worth. You wont find a better deal than that!
Cheers