Just as a fella who has also flown with Rhino packs and Turnigy motors directly compared to Thunder Power Packs and higher end motors.
What you will see are the following:
Batteries
The Thunder Power will give you more volts/amp, higher capacity/oz, & possibly more cycles. The reality is this, the voltage/amp is a fractional difference as well as the capacity/oz (comparing silimlar pack sizes). It does add up, but is it worth the difference in price?
It really boils down to cost per flight. If you choose big enough batteries to sustain the average current draw of an ECL powered ship and you buid it light enough, using the cheaper batteries doesn't hurt you. Compared head to head, the TP batteries are superior to Rhino cells and I will never dispute that, but what I will dispute is whether the cost justifies the difference. The demand on power (18 amps average in a 600 sq in stunter on 4s) is really so low that I can't personally see why the cheaper cells wouldn't be the right way.
Chargers
This is up to you, but I can tell you that I was at teh E-Nats this year and the charger to have ws the Turnigy Accucell 8. I spoke with many guys who had high end chargers that were trying to unload them because this $79 charger did everything their higher end charger did and more. It has a built in balancer so no accessory stuff is needed. I have a Triton 2 with Equinox balancer. With everything I could have had 2 Accucell 8's for the same as I have invested. I also have a Hextronic 8080 ($27) simple charger I bought to charge my foamy combat 2S packs. It will charge up to 4S @ 2amps. It has no display, only a selector switch for current. It is the best balancing charger I have.
Motors
Understand that the best running outrunner only gets 85-87% effieciency. Turnigy SK's get over 80%. My Uncle Dennis is flying Mythbuster with a $17 SK 35-42-1000. My opinion is that you have to size a motor big enough that it is capable of disapating the heat generated by the amount of power you need. Kv is also important, but you have quite a group here that you can draw from real experience and see what works for people.
An example of this would be that my Uncle Dennis has the Swinger which has flown on a few different motors. It currently flies on a 35-36-1200 on 4s. It has also flown using a 35-30-1250 and 28-36-1200. The performance with all (3) motors was exacly the same. The 35-30 blew up on the first loop of the clover, and the 28-36 ran at over 135 degrees. The 35-36 runs @ 115 Degrees. Proof that with governing controllers, the motor will deliver the goods (To a point). Note this is a 50 ounce 600 q in swept wing stunter. Heavy and high drag.
Bottom line is this. Spend what you want. There is no doubt that buying higher end equipment will get you quality. However, I will say that you will get a lot more flying with the same performance using the cheaper stuff.
I have attached some plots of Rhino 4S 20C 2350 cells and a Turnigy SK 35-42-1000 as flown in Mythbuster & one of my pylon racers. Note the battery voltage and current. Plots taken using ICE50.
Archie Adamisin
Muncie, Indiana