I just bought my first RC in over 20 years (last one was an RC10 as well). What I will tell you is the technology has CHANGED incredibly. Some other things have changed as well, quick cliff notes version of what I learned in reading (most will be based on my Wraith crawler kit experience)
They are 1/10 scale but are still 1/10 the price if you are building!
Many RTRs are decent, a lot of their short comings are on the radio side, do your research, the Wraith RTR gets good reveiws, even on the radio, really the shortfall was the motor. I went the kit route as I knew I was going to upgrade anyway
Novak ESCs now suck where they used to be the bomb (remember when if you ran a Novak you were serious, not anymore, at least not on the crawler side, now it is Tekin or Holmes)
With the new Lipo batteries you go from 15 minute run times to 1hour run times on a charge!
Motors, well, there are a heck of a lot more options, get ready to have a head ache learning and understanding as you read
Tower Hobbies is still around
Servos have come a long way and you truly get what you pay for, our old "good" servos had power of like 100oz/inch, now the crawlers are up in the 400s!
Tires, if you have a favorite full size tire you can probably find it in an RC size
Basically, if you can do it in a full size, you can make your RC do the same!