You must be talking from buying from your LHS. I have bought stuff from RCTech members a few times. You obviously have to put a lot of trust in the condition promised in the ad and research the person's trader history.

I will say this, a few of the things I have purchased from members here, the packaging has been awful (not you RKHess).. Not sure why guys do it that way, everything I have sold, I take pride in my packaging knowing if I was on the receiving end of that, I would like to see it show up in the mail well packaged even if it costs me an extra couple of bucks. One ESC I got in a tiny box it didn't fit in, zero packaging. The last motor I bought was literally put in a small shipping bag and rolled up, zero box, next to no protection, no sensor wire as pictured. All items worked fine, but I sure wish folks would put a bit more effort into how you package stuff!

Rant about packaging off, ask a lot of questions if you have to. I do trust trader ratings here though. I think people take a lot more pride in their RCTech trader ratings than eBay ratings.