By the way I understand how you feel. I crashed my Big Stik the first time I flew it. Broke the fuse in half and tore up the wing. I had to work on something else for a couple weeks until the emotions went away and then I was able to fix it. It flies better now.
And I'm not so worried about keeping it perfect anymore now that it's got a big fat doubler on the tail and packing tape holding the covering down. I fly it on high rates all the time with about 40% expo. You mentioned you want an easy flier that will do all the stuff you mentioned, knife edge, etc... and then slow down and land like a trainer... I don't know any other plane that does that as good as this one... Any of the sticks, big, ultra, etc...