I've been watching this thread with interest, i'm a club racer who knew nothing about LiPo batteries when I returned to racing in 2011 and i've used nothing but Turnigy batteries since then.
It's not rocket science. All I did when I started was read the guide i've linked below, i've never lost a cell and never had a LiPo fire:
http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-lipo-batteries.html
To try and dictate to people what brand of batteries they can use seems laughable to me, particularly because I started on 1/8th brushless which, if i've understood correctly, has no restriction despite the fact they run on 2 x 2S or a 4S pack so in theory have twice the level of danger as a 1/10th car running 2S.
Some posters have responded by telling people to basically just quit complaining and buy the approved batteries off the EB list, but why should I when I can get perfectly good, safe, ROAR-legal ones for half the price (or less!!)? Why are the equivalent approved ones so expensive? This is just Ripoff Britain all over again, no different to parallel import motorcycles in the '90s or any other number of examples. It's a short-sighted approach which discourages people from taking up the hobby in the first place.
For me the biggest problem here is not the extra £20 for an "approved" LiPo pack but the behaviour of "yes men" like Mark Christopher and Neil Skull, trying to bully and intimidate people into towing the party line and signing up to what amounts to a price cartel. Looking back through history, all corrupt systems of government have relied on people like these two to basically go out into the general population and put the boot in to anyone who disagrees with the party line. Hitler had the Gestapo, Stalin had the KGB, and we get Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.
There is a principle here. Who are they to threaten me with grassing me up to "the good people at customs"? As a person whose ancestors fought against Hitler for my freedom (which is now being taken away by the government) I actually find this offensive on a personal level, it's no different to the Swedish government passing a law which makes it illegal to criticise their mass immigration policy (and yes, they've actually done this). If they want to behave in this way then might I suggest that they get in touch with Kim Jong Un? He's setting up the NKRCA and this pair of jobsworths could be just the fellows!
If the moderators on here take the view that i've been personally offensive then fine, delete my post. That will only serve to highlight the fact that some of us know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom. I have nothing personal against the people whose names i've mentioned, I just think they're very misguided in the way they've tried to argue their point.