Glad to see that you have changed your mind about electric. I have been running RC cars for years. I run both Nitro and electric for many years. There is a time and place for both, but yes I agree nitro can be pretty maintence intensive. Now that electric is just as fast, and run times are getting pretty long with Lipo's and high capacity batteries it's nice sometimes just slap a battery in hit the road!
It seems you have pretty much chosen your hardware, but I have one suggestion for a charger. I just picked up a charger form GT Power, good price and seems to do a very good job. It has a built in balancer with most connections built into the side of the charger. It also does a pretty good job at charging my other batteries, and comes with a whole bunch of prewired connections for various types of batteries. It even comes with a USB cable to hook up to your computer to check the status of your battery as its being charged.
Here is web site for the charger.
http://www.gt-rc.com/pro_detail_en.asp?PID=57
I got mine for 160 CAD at my local HS.