If you're running nothing but the best lipos like Orions, balancing is not critical, but still advised. You at least need a way to see how closely the cells are to being balanced. Its kind of ironic, but the cheaper lipos need more attention to cell balance since they tend to get out of balance more often than the high quality lipos do. You risk overdischarging one if you're not balancing. With Orions or other high quality lipos, thats not much of a risk admittedly, but as expensive as they are, I'd want to maintain them as best as I could.

The linked charge above is a suprisingly full featured charger. I have one and have been amazed at how much it can do. For a $50 charger, its going to be hard to beat.

I use a balancing charger and its just too easy to balance everytime I charge. I don't see any reason not too.