Welcome to the "dark side," gboulton! I'm a fellow "fixed-winger" myself, sucked into this chaotic world of rotary-wing. I too suffered with those cheap POS wanna-be heli's at first. One gust of wind, and my Rotofly ate the side of the house, total FUBAR, I was so pissed at myself, I swore that was the end of my trials with e-heli's. That lasted about 1 month, when once again I was pulled in, a co-worker who doesn't even fly sent me a video of an AXE CP doing the coolest stuff. If I can find the web address I'll post it here.
Less than 10 minutes later I bought an AXE CP, extra NiMH (not one of my better choices), plastic trainer blades, spare tail rotor blades, and anything else I thought I would most likely break within the 1st hour or so. It was the best money I'd spent in a while, minus those POS NiMH batteries. I found I could fly, or at least hover to 3min or so. Soon it was back to the LHS to upgrade to a real gyro, a Futaba GY240 gyro and a Electrifly C-12 ESC, this made a BIG difference in how the AXE behaved, but what Heli-max doesn't say in there upgrade to the heading-hold gyro is that, you MUST upgrade to a Lipo battery! Not list it as an OPTIONAL ITEM, unless flying for less than 2 minutes is OK with you? The stock pack last less than 3min before the ESC shuts down, causing a spinning death to the ground.
This RC Universe "Helimax formites," have been a great help, just looking though the posts has provided great infomation, upgrades, and my favorite, modifications! The goal, full 3D flying, eventually ending up with a glow-powered .50 sized scale heli in AIRWOLF mods, if I can slide it by my Executive Director of Social & Finanial Affairs.

Shadow