so my Losi TEN-SCBE is nice and super fun and runs great BUT....
The shocks are plastic and the caps started breaking. I was able to get metal shock caps. The 8ight kit comes with all metal shocks.
All the outdrives started to wear badly. They developed notches where the dogbone pins hit the notches. This was a lot of work to fix as it required rebuilding all the differentials to replace the outdrives. I don't really know if the new outdrives are made of a harder material or if the outdrives that came in my 8ight are better but I hope so. So far I am not seeing notches in either but time will tell.

So those are the kind of things I am talking about. I didn't even know what an outdrive was when I bought my used Serpent. When I saw what was happening with my SCBE I went back to look for wear on the Serpent outdrives. There wasn't any and I have to assume that the previous owner had run it plenty.

Build a kit or buy a used kit or roller from someone here in the classified section. A new kit will cost more upfront but will save you time and money down the road. Buying used is a crap shoot but there are some good deals out there.