Despite getting the SC5M I certainly won't be getting rid of my SC10RS either
Not having threaded shocks is a bit of a pain if ride height needs changing, but other than that with the RPM upgrades I have on it it is a quite nice truck indeed, plenty good for practise even if I'll never race with it in the future. I kinda wish I had the aluminum steering bellcrank stuff, but so far the superglued servo-saver (to "disable" it) has held up. While I've only driven maybe... 50 packs at most? with it so far, as far as I can remember I've only broken the original servo (what a piece of crap - it broke within maybe two hours, and the servo saver wasn't even disabled yet then), receiver antenna, steering link "cup", two rear T-plates and a front bumper. Since I installed the RPM stuff this summer, breakages are even less likely!
As for the FT... had I been a bit more knowledgeable and less impatient back when I got my first cars, I would've ended up with the FT rather than the RS - mainly because I would've known how/where/what to source for cheaper electronics, I knew it was the better version otherwise. The over the top price I paid for that stuff (inc. battery) on my first car, the B5M, in late 2014 prior to buying the SC10 kinda skewed my perception of what separate electronics cost at the time. That made the RS seem like the better deal. But for the cost of the threaded big bore shocks, aluminum bellcrank and aluminum hexes that the RS lacked I could've gotten a very serviceable ESC/motor/servo set from Turnigy, and then just thrown in either a Sanwa receiver to bind to my B5M's transmitter or get an affordable Turnigy or similar for that too! Similarly I could've saved probably up to 300€ on the B5M going that route. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20
And at least this summer the SC5M benefited from that expensive lesson - it is running Turnigy electronics except for the receiver.