Hi bigbad.
Welcome to the forums.
Well the stuff you are being told is sort of true but seems to be a bit biased towards the "old school" nitro thinking.
I fly both nitro and electric for the record
Its true,with an electric once your battery is done to need to land and charge. The same applies to a nitro heli, once the fuel runs out, you need to land and fuel. The difference is that the electric packs take a while (1 - 2 hours) to charge and you cant rush them if they are lipos. It only takes a few minutes to refuel. The downside of Nitros is that to fly them you need a toolbox full of stuff to get them off the ground. (Glow stick, starter, starter battery, fuel, fuel pump, ect) The solution to this problem (for electrics) is to carry more charged packs and a charger so that you can charge one pack while flying the other. The batteries cost around 50 gpb ($65-70) for a t-rex sized lipo. Expect this price to fall in the near future because there are a lot of new big electrics hitting the market now and I think this will force the prices down.
The comment about get a 50 cause anything smaller is unstable is also a bit biased. The difference between a 30 and a 50 size heli in stability terms is non existent. It is true that the bigger they are, the more stable they are, this is really due to one thing. Weight. It is, however, quite possible to learn to fly on a T-rex, Zoom size heli (I did). Again what they didnt tell you is that the bigger they are, the more they cost to fix when they crash. So you can expect a t-rex to cost about half what a Raptor does to repair. Also, a T-rex can be made stable by building it properly and weighting the flybar.
The other thing that maybe wasnt mentioned is that Nitro helis need large ammounts of space to be able to fly. Your unlikely to be able to drag the raptor down to your local park and fly without being complained at / being told to stop by the police ect. Its far more likely you would get away with it with an electric. If you can get in a club / live in the middle of nowhere, this problem goes away though.
The Raptor 50 is a fine beginners heli and is well supported. However your choice of heli will be affected by lots of things. Remember, whatever heli you choose, you need to add about another 1.5 times the cost of the heli for the stuff you need to be able to get it flying.
Some other suggestions for you are...
Hirobo Sceadu Evo 30 or 50 which is arguably more stable and better engineered than the raptor.
Knight 50 a new heli with an all metal head. Looks nice.
Century Hawk.
Also some electrics..
Align T-Rex 450
Hirobo Lepton (if money is no object)
Century Swift (30 Sized electric, won Clubman 3d in the UK this year)
Your choice of Sim is also down to your budget / preference but there are 2 main contenders.
Realflight G3.
Reflex XTR.
My preference is for Reflex because it looks real and it uses your transmitter (and all the settings in it).
Advice... Basically, 1. Get that sim, 2. Find a club and join it. 3. Buy a heli that a few of the other club members have. 4. When youve built the heli, get somebody experienced to check it/set it up for you.
Hope this helps a bit and your still awake after such along post.
Take care and good luck... Azzy