Which 18m FES sailplane to buy?

Touch call. The easy part of your question is...why buy a standard class glider, ever? ;-). I certainly wouldn't. Less high speed performance, less climb, higher landing speeds and not really any easier to rig or less expensive.

Moving on...the HpH, from what I have seen is among the highest finish quality. Many recent buyers have been blown away. That's how you should feel, blown away! I think HpH will be increasing in popularity and is quietly selling a good deal of sailplanes. They are not aimed at hard core competitors for sure, but if your putting FES on a sailplane, that doesn't really matter much.

The Lak17b FES is also excellent. I have owned a Lak17a and found it highly under-rated by certain camps. The 17"b" suffers from the same. The '17a' was designed as a 15m glider and the 18m tips were an afterthought (although is was remarkably competitive in 18). It also had a fairly low max wingloading (for 18m) of around 10.5 lb/sq.ft with a 15m based max gross weight of 1103 lbs (a ASG29 goes to nearly 12 lb/sq.ft and 1330 lbs in 18).

The '17b' FES fixes all of those limitations and then some. It has completely redesigned wing focused on 18m class but also at home in 15 & 21m. The horizontal stab, elevator, fin and rudder are all slightly larger to accommodate for 18m and 21m. The cockpit and many other features have also been improved over the years. Also, Lak has been building FES gliders for years now. There installation is very clean and extremely well thought out. There is no more reliable sustainer on earth than FES. Smart move to consider it.

Here are some pictures of a new Lak17b from the Ontario Provincial Championships held over Labor Day weekend this September. It was beautiful and the trailer arrangement (all three tips ready to go!) was genius.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0VGQOeMmGCEx8j