I agree with Mr67Stang , the best way to choose a trainer is to go to your closest airfield and speak to the instructors there and get there advise on what type of trainer to purchase. At the same time you can get recommendations on which brand of radio to purchase if they use a buddy cord system at the club.

Be very careful when comparing the simulator to the real thing. They make a great training aid you will definitely be ahead of the curve when you start out at the field when compared to a person that has never had a go on the sim. By the sounds of your description you will really be at an advanced stage of learning when you start, however simulators tend to give you a false sense of security and they allow you to develop bad habits since all you have to do is reset the sim if it all goes wrong. I also found that take offs and landings are a lot easier in the sim than in reality. I think that some of this can be attributed to the lack realism in the sim and some of it to the fact that you don't worry about getting it wrong in sim (and that you don't have all the senior pilots watching you in the club making you nervous).

Although the trainer will not be as capable as a 50% IMAC plane, if you watch this clip [link=http://www.flyinggiants.com/gallery/data/504/attachment.wmv]Trainer 3D[/link] you will see that your trainer is quite capable of doing a lot more than most people believe it can. Although personally I am not capable of flying my trainer like this, I am quite capable of doing all the basic type of aerobatics such as loops, inverted flight and rolls with it.

The most important thing of all is to get to your closest RC airfield and find an instructor to train/guide you. Please do not ignore the comments that were posted here and think that since you can fly the advanced planes in the sim, you can go and buy one and fly it on your own. That will be a very expensive way to end your association with this hobby since you WILL crash it long before you are capable of anything as advanced as hovering or knife edge flights (You will most probably crash it on your first flight).

Cheers
Pups