By all means get to the Nats! It is a great time and a load of fun! You'll meet some of the greatest people in RC and will no doubt learn many valuable lessons. Many have tried the route of giving up armor to increase performance and it does work. But after you see or fly in a few events you'll quickly learn that is also pays to be tough. You don't rack up many points while waiting to go retrieve your debris and you have to spend a tremendous amount of time building planes to keep up with losses if you fly in many contests.
You probably won't believe me! You should come and see for yourself!
Therre will be plenty of time for test flights and demo's before and after the contests. I'm sure there will be some night flying too! It's a real blast!