ORIGINAL: tinky-winky
When purchasing batteries I'd say it has to be a good brand. I get 15 minutes of runtime with my sanyo 2400 nicd packs, which is more than with those team orion 3000 packs. Quality packs also have longer lifetime. Concerning the model, I'd pick a kit, as it means that when you have to repair the task is much easier. My first cars were tamiyas and I can thouroghly recommend them.
still the sanyos are nicd and have cell memory, the orions are fine for bashing and the fusions are also good but a tad expensive. If you have money to burn go out and buy a set of nice batteries that have a huge capacity but for bashers the extra bit of performance you get with quality cells doesn't really matter or change the fun factor. I highly doubt that 2400's can exceed the runtime of 3000's as the 3000's have 25% more capacity, quality makes a difference but not that huge of a difference.