Welcome back to the hobby

Most people will usually vouch for the brand they own - that's why they chose it in the first place

If you are a basher, I wouldn't consider 1/10th scale, the size of the tires mean that you have to limit yourself to rather smooth surfaces, unless you go MT, but then the leverage on the A-arms is too high and they become fragile.

I'd go 8th scale or possibly bigger if your budget allows, however $400 will buy you mostly used 8th scale. If you plan to bash "hardcore" with crazy jumps, cartwheels and all, I'm afraid a proper 8th scale race machine, similar to your MP7.5, will not be appropriate because these are still racecars design, and they work well on a track only, not a construction site, or in the woods, or the typical bashing playground.

I would suggest to wait a bit more, save a bit more money, and go more towards the ARRMA/Traxxas kind of products which you can run pretty much everywhere, and have high enough ride height and soft enough plastics to be very robust at the expense of "track" performance. The "premium bashing" segment really has a lot of tailwind these days, which It didn't have a few years back, so there are some great products out there.

I wouldn't consider an "upgradeable" product from 2wd to 4wd - this would be full of compromises. Heck, I don't know if they evey do these anymore