Why I haven't been playing lately

Race saeson is here! Here is the Stig's longboarding cousin, Skate Stig leading the pack at the Bakersfield Outlaw in California.

That's fantastic.

I enjoy the RC hobby. I don't have a rock crawler or a decent rock crawling course but I'd love to go down that route sometime.  Rock crawling is quite technical from what I understand and provides proper 4WD/rock crawler function

Some years ago, probably the mid 80s  I bought a 2WD COX Bandido, which shared some components with the more prestigiously branded Kyosho Pegasus, I think.  I had to assemble it and it was a hell of a lot of fun. It only had a run time of around 15 minutes mind you. Brushed electric motor,  7.2V NiMH battery wasn't great but it was a lot of fun.

Fast forward about 25 years. I figured i'd buy a present for my kids birthday. I bought him a cheapish brushless 4WD buggy which was essentially ready to run  about 4 years agoanyway that was about 4 years ago. The 1/10 buggy - Only a few months in, the ESC smoked up even though i'd only been running 2S lipo and it was rated for 3S. I ended up replacing the ESC and motor as well as wheels. I turned it into a truggy to provide it with better stability although given the extra speed, that's somewhat questionable. Drive train is solid, able to handle the extra wheels and extra torque and it's taken a serious beating.

Since then, my my lad who's 16 and myself have acquired in addition to the buggy, 3  hobby grade RC trucks, 1 Buggy and a rally car, all 4WD 
Only ever use them for bashing.

The RC rally car is 1/8 scale and is rated to 6S Lipo( we use 2X 2S 6000mah batteries) which is plenty of grunt. It apparently has a true speed of over 60MpH according to the video here: 
It was phenomenal value from Hobby King, only setting me back less than $300AU delivered as RTR batteries not included. 

1/8 scale GV Cage - Nitro buggy 
2 X 1/8 scale Nitro Trucks 
1 X 1/10 Scale Electric Truck

Electric is far more convenient than nitro, much quieter and cleaner, nitro fuel is horrible stuff.

You made the right decision in my opinion regarding Electric although i'm surprised the 7.2V NiMH 3000mah provides enough runtime. With that said though, crawling is a lot different to bashing.  NiMH is a bit safer than LiPo too. 

Waterproof ESC and sealed battery compartments are very common these days. Snow and puddles - it all adds to the experience. The closest I've gotten though is long and wet grass. I don't recommend that for Electric or Nitro.

My Nitro vehicles have .25,.28 and .32(GV Cage) engines. Not super fast or terribly sluggish but My electric vehicles are faster than my Nitro vehicles and have better cooling so have longer continuous run time despite the ridiculous current draw and inefficiencies which produce ridiculous amounts of heat. 

Working on these things can be fun although my boy hates the maintenance aspect. I don't really have a decent garage/shed or basement. I have a tool shed and a wood shed and a double Garage but no room for work bench so instead, I have a games room which prior to being a games room was part of my backyard patio. Anyway it happens to have a nice pool table in it and much to my wife's dislike, I found the laser level slate table with great lighting makes for a very good surface for working on PCs and tinkering with these vehicles.

Prior to acquiring the Rally car but after acquiring some truck wheels and tyres for the 1/10 buggy(Tyres Can be seen stacked next to the right front wheel of the GV Cage and in front of the Left wheel of the Nokier Truck)  I took some pictures.
imgur.com/a/KXA4ieM

The trucks are all very cheap China hobby grade, nothing like Traxxas or HPI even if they look the part on the outside but they are about 1/3 of the price of the Traxxas, Redcat or HPI equivalent and cheap enough so that I can get away with it from my Wife who thankfully, prevents me getting too out of control with spending needlessly.

I do think they are nice looking trucks and and are very good value for money considering. 

Real world tests show that they are quite solidly built and the standard suspension setup does it's job well enough that I haven't had to adjust. Considering the size and weight of the vehicles that's better than expected.  I've had them flying through the air on a number of occasions and they maintain they tend to maintain their stability although too fast over uneven ground and they do roll. 
HSP tend to have a reputation for poor quality control and there are so many reports of breakages with fairly minor crashes but I think I must have gotten lucky since All of the ones that I have, have taken a beating and work pretty well. I do wish they were all electric.  I converted one of the 1/8 trucks to an electric start when I snapped the pull rope and I think I bent one of the drive axles when it ran flat out into something solid but it still seems to run and turn fine - nothing broken apart from some of the plastic on top.  The Nitro is so high maintenance relative to the Electric though and I get less run time out of them. Pull starting is also painful, especially for the young fella when he was 13 so I acquired a start box for bump starting the GV Cage, it takes a couple of 2800mah 7.2V NiMH batteries and works well enough but it's still hassle relative to the Electric and did I mention the Evils of Nitro fuel - sticks to everything and dirt sticks to it. 
The biggest hassle of LiPo Electric is needing to charge them supervised.