As a newbie who found most of this stuff out the hard way, I can offer you this advice:
Don't bother with the brushed stuff. i ruined my madrat motor in about 10 runs (yes it was correctly geared), plus it was slower than my grandmother in a wheelchair.
If you absolutely insist on buying an RTR, get the brushless RTR and then you have 2 options: A) Just run it as you bought it and see what happens, or B) Change out the ESC for a better one. I wouldn't worry too much about the Ansmann motor, it should be fairly decent, but the ESC, well who knows? Depending on where you buy it, they may have some decent ESC's for around 20 pounds and if you ask, they may solder them to the motor for you.
As for the EZrun stuff. yes, some people have had very good luck with them, but not me. Mine arrived DOA from Hong Kong. Good luck sending that one back...
I have this combo:
http://www.henimo.de/Gesamtuebersich...-2::10958.html
A bit pricey, but great quality, fully automatic setup and one of the only combo's I know that don't require soldering!
As for the bearings, I'd say they are a must. I got mine at Rcbearings:
http://www.rcbearings.co.uk/index.ph...roducts_id=590
Hope this helps.