Adam,
firstly welcome to oOple and we hope you enjoy your stay
I am SO pleased to see somebody else from my neck of the woods, I think that makes a grand total of 2 of us from Cheltenham on here now, although there are a couple of Gloucester lads too. I will PM you my mobile number and I am more than happy to help and advise as much as is possible, hell lets head to the track and you can run my cars and see what is what before you spend a bucket load of cash!
Brief answers to your questions, we can always flesh it out further later.
LiPo .. I'll put my personal feelings to one side and stay with the positives. They have made the sport simpler and cheaper, no question. You need 2 packs of decent LiPos and I would advise buying saddle packs as they can be made to fit everything where as stick cells only fit certain cars. Here is the list of approved cells for racing
http://www.brca.org/BRCA/elecboard/n...0v1%20pdf6.pdf
Add to that a decent charger and your sorted. Now Lipo chargers seem to come in 2 main flavours, as in the elcetronics inside them are based primarily on 2 chips. I know a lot of people who use the PowerPal (as indeed I do) and that is a great unit for the money although anything similar will be fine. No longer do you NEED to spend a fortune to look after your cells, £50 should see you right ... a little more if you want mains power too.
Motors ... again brushless has made things simpler and cheaper in the long run. There are loads of different performance characteristics across the brands but IMHO the Speed Passion stuff is the smoothest (think of it as a quad wind), the LRP probably the most agressive (think of it as a single) but there is that much adjustment it's possible to affect the feel of any of them with in reason. A 6.5 is a good choice in either 2wd or 4wd, a 5.5 if your a speed monster.
http://www.jespares.com/electric-mod...tegory_id=1274
2.4Ghz again makes life easier, There are stick sets for under £100 (such as the core unit) if you look but I still believe that a decent radio can make the difference so will always use Futaba or KO myself.
Now for the real personal prefernce thing .. the cars!
I'd say try to get a drive of a few and see what you feel most comfortable with!
I'd say look at the Kyosho cars, unbeatable build quality, durability and so so so adaptable in terms of handling they can be anything you want them to be! I will be honets and say that I am supported by Kyosho but equally before I was I ran Kyosho anyway! As I say come and have a drive of mine, i promise you won't be disapointed.
Other than that I'd say that there are no "bad" cars out there now but some suit certain driving styles more than others, for example I don't like the way the Associated cars feel personally but nobody can say they aren't good cars and are rightly very popular. It really is a case of personal preference and nothing more.
Now when it comes to where to race we have a little problem. Cheltenham is right in the no-mans-land between the Mid-West and Mid-South regions, no mater which you race in you will be traveling lots I am afraid.
I have always traditionally raced in the Mid-West region and continue to do so, clubs include Ledbury (grass), Coventry (astroturf) and the mighty Kidderminster (absolutely everything you can think of surface wise) and this region is very active over winter with the Midlands Astro Masters series
http://www.brca-midwest.co.uk/
Anyway, I hope we get chance to speak soon and rest assured there has never been a better time to get back into 1/10th off-road!