Here's an unretouched photo of my RC18T with the stock ESC and the Spektrum SR3000 working together in harmony. All the lights are green for Go.

I think the issue is that people are having problems binding the Rx and then setting up the ESC. Try binding the Rx first using a Rx battery pack, then plugging in the ESC to set it up. I had no problems but the Rx was bound to my Tx in my Losi XXX-NT so I never had to rebind it in the RC18T.