The TRex for a small electric heli is about the best I've seen so far. I have the SE and I am extremly happy with it. I used to have the Raptor 30 and then went with 2 Fury Extreme 90's. I sold the 90's since getting out to the field was a real pain with our newly created family
I've had the SE flying for about a month now. Electric is the way to go if you just want something to fly in your backyard. They are a bit harder to control and a bit harder to see since they are smaller, but if you're just learning to hover and do some circuits, you'll need to keep it in close anyways. Plus, no mess to clean up and as long as you have 2 to 4 batteries, you can keep flying all day without waiting too long for something to charge.
The money for a crash isn't too bad on the TRex's either. You'd have to stuff it hardcore to get over $100.
JayB,
A good ARF really doesn't exist
Most ARF's you're going to want to break them down to loctite everything and check all your linkages.
A turbine is typically powered through a gearbox to bring the 80K RPM's down to something reasonable for the geartrain of the heli.
I like that there is a heli thread on here, but if you're REALLY interested in getting in to the helis, you should check out
www.runryder.com for the skinny on just about every popular heli made today.
Shawn