I have actually seen more tuning issues with the Firestorm than with the gt2. Just look in the Firestorm forum. Other than that I got a friend that has one and it is pretty durable. As far as the ball diff it is not a pain. In the 14 years that I have owned the RC10GT I only had to rebuild the diff once. And the diff is very tunable as well. If your looking for an all around basher then Firestorm would be the way to go just get a different motor. If you want an all around racer/basher then the gt2 is for you.