[HotnCold]

CHVAKA - I have run the surge batteries for a couple years now - I have several of the stage 2 and several of the stage 3. The switch from most stick packs will be very noticable with either the 2 or the 3 packs. Imho the stage 2 will be a great place to start off with. Surge batts have really held up well and i continue to use them for my race packs in my 10th scales.
The discharge of the batteries is not required but that is personal preference. Some rarely ever discharge their batteries down to .9v a cell, some do it every week before racing. There are a bunch of good dischargers available today. You can also use the bulb discharger method. They say a good discharge rate for taking your batteries down is 20 amp. The 1157 automotive bulb draws 2 amps when hooked to your battery. 10 - 1157 bulbs would get you a 20 amp disharger fairly inexpensively. MPH makes an assembled bulb discharger that you could use - with or without a cutoff that cuts off the voltage at 5.4v ( .9 x 6 cells ) without the voltage cutoff you could monitor the lights till they get dim ( that way you could use the discharger with more than 6 cells at a time). There are a lot of opinions on charge and discharge batteries - Sniff around a little and do what makes sense to you......

And the end to end packs drop the resistance between the cells because they are directly soldered. That is the reasoning behind that method of soldering.....