You don't have to have a PL prod or ZN plane to compete in higher levels of pattern. Although they do fly real nice and are the best planes out there, I bet you could still do really well with available designs that you can build yourself, (Typhoon 2000, patriot,Aresti 3, etc)
Then put something like an os 160 with a cline regulator in it, oodles of reliable grunt, without a comparitively huge price tag.
Digi servos are getting cheaper, alright they are still very expensive, but probably worth it.
I reckon that you could put together a competitive plane for a little over 1000 US.