the gimbal breaking is pretty much only a problem if you crash... which let's be honest a lot of people do especially if you don't have much multirotor piloting experience to start with. I don't think control issues and flyaways are much of an issue anymore... way back in the day sure but unless you fudge something up badly it'll do several kilometers out of the box.. at least the RC control.
If you wind up with a Vision, there's an antenna upgrade bundle from FPVLR.com that supposedly really helps.
I personally am in the NON-Vision Phantom2 family... we still get 3 axis gimbal (Zenmuse H3-3D is typically bundled) for stabilization, and you have to add your own GoPro but now you have a GoPro you can use for anything not just the Phantom.
It's slightly more expensive to go the non-Vision route, but it's also more powerful and flexible. Adding in a FPV system can be done these days with no soldering, plug and play cables all you have to do is open the shell and plug some stuff in it's SUPER easy and now your FPV isn't limited to wifi range, it's an actual 5.8Ghz broadcast and with good antennas you can get FPV signal out as far as your battery can take you... I personally am out to 600+ meters with perfect FPV.
Another benefit of going the gimbal/gopro route is you can just not install the gimbal for a time, fly the Phantom around at short range and stuff and get totally comfortable with the product (and yes, probably crash a few times) without doing any damage to the gimbal. When you're ready, add the gimbal and/or FPV stuff. I don't know if you can separate the gimbal off the Vision models like that maybe you can? someone else can speak to that.
That's not to say the Vision doesn't have any advantages... it's cheaper and works right out of the box but assuming you can't install the gimbal later like you said one crash and you are looking at a potential multi-hundred dollar repair. I crashed my Phantom a few times when it was new before I installed the gimbal and all that happened was a few broken props, no big deal. The phantom itself is quite rugged (imo) it's the gimbals and associated cables that are sensitive.
