I'm my experience you can get them to hold near rated mah with a bunch of cycles on them but they won't have any amps to push.

Basically the rc moves for about 5 seconds then they're dead. Seen this with about twenty or so roughly 10 year old nimh/nicd pro matched batts.

Are you trying to run old rc's with brushed electronics? If so there's a guy on ebay that makes matched nimh packs. If your using new brushless equipment just invest in a charger and some lipos. You can pick up an accucel 6 lipo charger on hobbyking for about $30 with the power supply plus shipping. That charger does lipo, nimh, nicd and even lead acid. That same website has really nice and affordable zippy or turnigy Nano tech lipo batteries.