Great topic, and I'll add a cents worth here.
I started crawling with a GMade R1 running a brushless BLE/ Tekin brushless on 3s. Loved it and crawled great, bounced well also. Onto a 2.2 Wraith, PullerPro 3500 on 3s Bombproof trans, OD HD gears, a stump pulling beast! Enter a VS4, 2700 Trailmaster Pro on 3s.......Perfect wheelspeed, torque and creepability.
See a pattern here, all 3s crawling. So enter my last build an SCX10ii. I wanted something different, but solid and equal to my brushless . I had a leftover Mamba Max Pro sitting here, and a box of 3s, so I bought a 13t Holmes Crawlmaster brushed, as this is a 5 pole, it has gobs of slow speed creep and torque, without any fancy throttle curves in the ESC. I can switch to any of the brushless with this esc, so I have the best of both.
Now I've ordered another truck kit,an Associated Enduro BUT it really is for the wife. So with her in mind a simple Hobbywing 1080 and a 16t 5 pole Radon on 2s for under $75.00, should creep well and still have enough guts, and will drop 3s in down the road.
End thought......More initial $$$ and setup time needed for brushless, more wear and tear maintenance with brushed, but much lower initial costs, even with a handwound motor.