Thanks everyone. At this point I'm pretty much leaning towards the slow stick. It seems like it'll give me the best odds, once I've learned to fly in an open area, of being able to fly in my back yard. It's a big yard, but there are some trees scattered around, so something slow enough to let me maneuver around them would be nice. The WildHawk suggested by opjose is probably second on my list, with the super cub coming in third indestructible and cheap wins out over high quality just at the moment.

So there's an SS/motor kit on Amazon for about $35. That leaves me needing servos, ESC, transmitter, receiver, and battery. The battery is fairly easy to figure out: make sure the ratings are right, and it should be fine. Ditto for the ESC, though if anyone has specific suggestions, I'd be pleased to have them. Servos... again, there are some recommended by GWS, so going with those seems reasonable.

That leaves transmitter and receiver, and that's where I get really lost. 2.4GHZ, 72MHz, crystals, matching receivers and transmitters, and no one seems to just sell a matched set, other than the one I mentioned in my first post. And THAT one doesn't seem to have any available receivers that work with it that aren't part of the bundle, which means a limited opportunity to reuse it without moving the receiver around. Can anyone point me to something that will straighten it out? From what I've read, I'd sort of prefer to go 2.4GHz from the beginning, especially if the kit I mentioned is reasonable, but... yeah. Too much information, too little organization. And I don't know of a local hobby shop to visit in hopes of finding someone to explain it.