NiMH batteries do have a memory. It's not like a NiCd where you can ruin the battery in a few days, but if you constantly discharge about 20% of your battery, then charge it, and never give it a full cycle, performance and runtime will decrease.
Alpine has cycled batteries. Everytime that you run an RC battery until it's dead, and then you charge it back up, that's technically a cycle. As long as you run your nimh batteries all the way down every once in a while, they'll be fine.
Flander, you don't need a 3-4000 nimh battery. You only want to run a 2/3A battery pack because of size and weight, and I think 1500-1600 is the biggest they come, and that's plenty big enough.
I would reccomend getting a Castle Sidewinder ESC and a lathe motor to start with. With the Novak you can only run 7 cell saddle packs and 2S LiPo. When you get into crawling, you're going to want to upgrade your motor eventually. The best thing that you can do with any crawler motor is volt up and gear down, which will give you the best low end throttle response and startup routine. I used to only run Novak, until I ran a really nice Mamba/brushed setup. Now that's all I run. With the sidewinder, you can run an 8 or 10 cell saddle pack and gear down, which will give you much better low end throttle response, which equates to better control and better performance, and you will also have more wheelspeed at the same time. Also, you can get the sidewinders quite cheap, and they have a special coating that makes them fairly water resistant. I'm not telling you that you can drive it on the bottom of the lake for extended periods of time exposed, but it will handle some splashes and things like that. It's also fully programmable on your computer with a USB port, so you can prgram throttle curves, braking curves, drag brake, reverse percentage, and a ton of other things. I sell the Novak ESC and motor, so I have no reason to lie to you. I carry Castle and Novak. The Novak is ok, I just find the the Castle offers a lot more for less money, with lots of potential in the future. When you start crawling you're going to be hooked, and want to upgrade your motor and things like that, and with the Castle you will be able to use the same ESC with any brushed motor and run the voltage that you need, as opposed to have to get a new ESC when you step up to a bigger motor and 11.1 volts LiPo or 8 or 10 cell NiMH.
