I can honestly say that Traxxas has greatly improved on that in the last couple years. The entire electric line has all metal gears and waterproof parts now (except for the brushless ESCs) and mostly all of their RCs now have metric hex head screws. Ball bearings are also mostly standard. This is a far cry from the plastic bushings, plastic gears, and philips screws that stripped all too easily of just a couple years ago. Their plastic however still is the same lousy compound it's always been.

Traxxas has been very innovative lately with their waterproof electrics and the strangely simple yet fun Slash.

I'm no fanboy of any particular brand. If you look at my signature you'll see I have RCs of quite a few different brands. All have a certain appeal.

I definitely agree with the previous comment that the Revo is a jack of all trades, master of none, but for those that don't have multiple RCs as I do, that's perfect. It's very versatile and can adapt to many situations. The Savage however makes a great basher.

The bottom line is no one RC is the best at everything. No brand makes every RC perfect every time. The best thing to do is run what you're happy with. For those trying to decide between the E-Revo BL and the Savage Flux, I'd recommend they try for themselves first if they can. If you can't find anyone that has one that will let you try it out, the Revo 3.3 or Savage X is also reasonably comparable if you can get your hands on one, at least as far as handling is concerned.