Happy to help brother. CP is a whole different animal. They hover similarly, but when you start moving things happen so much faster it's not even funny. I wouldn't worry too much about the tail motor. I only went through the one motor in all my crashes, but I snapped the tail boom a few times. If you want to make it a stronger heli these guys have tons of cool stuff.
http://www.micro-flight.com/BLADE-MSR.htm
Pitch comes into play immediately when you fly CP's. The throttle and pitch are on the same lever. There's almost always going to be a couple different modes. Usually a normal mode and idle up (or stunt).
When you are in normal mode, your throttle works just like it does on your msr. As you raise the lever from the bottom the rotor speed increases. The pitch is set to a negative pitch at the bottom, but usually not as negative as in idle up. As you raise the stick to the mid point, your blades pitch towards zero degrees at mid stick. Your throttle will at half and the rotor will be spun up pretty fast. As you increase past the mid point, your pitch starts to change towards positive and your throttle increases up to 100% (depending on setup). This is the basic setup for taking off and landing, most people will take off like this and switch to idle up while in flight. It's impossible to do any inverted flight because as you pull the stick down to get negative pitch you are also lowering the throttle. When you lower the throttle on a larger heli, the additional mass of the rotor makes sudden changes nearly impossible. This is the mode that you start out in, and will fly similarly to your msr.
Normal mode would look like this:
0% stick = 0% throttle and -10 degrees blade pitch
25% stick = 25% throttle and -5 degrees pitch
50% stick = 50% throttle and 0 degrees pitch
75% stick = 75% throttle and +5 degrees pitch
100% stick = 100% throttle and +10 degrees pitch
That's basically a linear throttle with zero at the bottom and max throttle at the top with a straight (linear) pitch curve. Pretty much like flying your mSR. The more you push the stick up the faster it turns and the more it goes up.
****When in normal mode, you can cut the throttle by lowering the stick****
Some may set a linear throttle but use less negative pitch so it doesn't slam into the ground so hard when you chop the throttle. This is how I would set up a beginners heli. The thing happens where you get nervous and cut the throttle but with negative pitch and the blades still turning, instead of simply dropping to the ground, the helicopter is being firmly driven into the ground unintentionally.
In idle up mode, this is where things are really different. The throttle is set very differently but the pitch is close to the same.
Pitch in idle up is almost always going to be a linear curve, meaning that at the low point of the stick, you are going to have max negative pitch (say -10 degrees) and at mid stick the pitch is zero degrees and at high stick you have equal positive pitch (+10 degrees) It's a straight curve from bottom to top with equal ends and zero in the middle.
Throttle in idle up is going to be one of a few things, usually linear or a V curve.
Linear throttle means that the throttle is the same no matter the stick position, usually at 100%. You can set it at 80 or 90 etc.
Your pitch is almost always going to be linear, which means a straight line from bottom to top with zero pitch at mid stick.
Example:
0% stick = 90% throttle and -10 degrees blade pitch
25% stick = 90% throttle and -5 degrees pitch
50% stick = 90% throttle and 0 degrees pitch
75% stick = 90% throttle and +5 degrees pitch
100% stick = 90% throttle and +10 degrees pitch
A V curve is where the throttle is lower at mid stick and higher at each end to account for more throttle with the higher load from more blade pitch.
For example:
0% stick = 100% throttle and -10 pitch
25% stick = 90% throttle and -5 pitch
50% stick = 80% throttle and 0 pitch
75% stick = 90% throttle and +5 pitch
100% stick = 100% throttle and +10 pitch
Notice that the throttle is changed but you still have the linear pitch curve.
With this is mind, note that lowering the throttle to zero will actually increase the throttle to max
*****In IDLE UP you CANNOT cut the motor by lowering the stick*****
You must switch out of idle up and lower the stick, or program a switch to be throttle cut. The throttle cut method is the safest and fastest. I have throttle cut on every single one of my models and it's always on the same switch so at any time I can kill the motor and minimize damage to the heli/plane or whatever/whoever it's crashing into.
It's late so I'm probably rambling but I hope this clears up a thing or two. If it brings up tons more questions, by all means let me know and we'll get it straightened out.