when i spoke of quality and toughness i was speaking on the thicknes of parts like arms and drive shafts. the fact they give you metal diff cups and diff cases front and rear steel breaks. these are things you would have to spend extra money on to get on other rtr trucks. as far as stock engine goes i didnt have much luck with it. even though i gave up on it early mainly because i wanted to race this big boy so i went to a .28 i use to run a lrp spec 2 in it until the engine died. wich ran very well in the nemesis as far as the lst handling better i dont know because i was only comparing parts visualy and my lst is a roller still. but if you compare part for part the nemesis has it in every way plus it was built to handle a much more powerful engine.