a comment about hitec...
i usually sit on the sidelines and watch other people's opinions as to "which thing is better than one thing?". rather then tell you that i think this thing is better than that thing, i'll give you an experience.
on august 18, i fedexed 2 servos to hitec for repair. both are digital, one being a high-speed and the other a high-torque. each cost me around 100 bucks each. i've had these in my gt-4 for the past couple of years, and they've worked w/o flaw. i recently put them into my buggy, but they didn't last. i didn't set the endpoints or the linkages correctly, so something inside broke (maybe a gear or something, i really don't know). i called on 8/22/03 to get an update, and i was told they haven't been looked at by a techinician yet, and it's probably gonna be about 5-7 business days. back to my point, today is 9/3/03 and they still haven't responded to me.
yesterday morning, i stopped by airtronics to get my servo worked on and my m8 took a crap - i wasn't getting any input from my steering channel (i guess all those drops finally caught up to me). by 11:30 a.m. everything was fixed. it cost only 30 bucks. i have on several occasions taken stuff back to airtronics to fix, and they have always fixed my gear the same day i drop it off. besides, bobby tom (mr.airtonics) is usally there, and this man has tons of rc experience, especially relating to radios. he's way cool, but more than that, he provides excellent customer service.
i don't think it's unreasonable to expect that same level of service from hitec. luckily for me, these servos are my back-ups, so i'm not grinding hitec to hurry it up. anyway, go with airtonics. period.