I'll agree with you get what you pay for! If one of my buds wanted to get into 1/8 nitro, I'd suggest a Losi 1.0 or 2.0 RTR. Parts are CHEAP on ebay and if you ever need anything at the track, the store there WILL have parts for it. As a beginner, I would occasionally break parts on my Losi but I could walk to the on-site hobby shop for replacement parts and keep on truckin'...with a lesser known car, I would've had to go home. Plus there are tons of setup info for the more popular cars and there will always be others at the track with the same car that can help you out. Customer support/warranty through Horizon Hobby/Losi/Spektrum is also TOP NOTCH.

IF you can afford a "better" quality car, why not? If for some reason, you don't like the hobby I would think that it would be easier to sell as well. It's like the guy who insists on buying the $40 cheapo servo because it should be "good enough"...after breaking 2-3 of em' the guy could have had the high quality servo and skipped the headaches.