Hi Tom,

I'm part of Hitchin Hackspace, it'd be great to see you down there and talk robots :-)

The 1000rpm motors you've selected should be fine with those wheels. My beetles all use four of those motors for drive with 55mm wheels and they've all had really good speed and pushing power. If you're only going to have two drive motors, like many beetles are, then you may find the acceleration is a bit slow but the top speed will still be there. That's probably why people are suggesting smaller wheels.
I use 3d printed hubs with my tyres. They've very lightweight but not really robust enough for combat. For a first bot, the ones you've selected should be good: easy and strong.
I also use the botbitz ESCs. they're some of the smallest available and actually fairly cheap on the scale of things. The Dimension Engineering speed controllers used to be an alternative but they're £45 each for an equivalent controller! There's also the VEX motor controllers: http://www.vexrobotics.com/276-2193.html They're much cheaper but lower voltage and lower current, you'll need to test or calculate if they'd be suitable for your drive setup.
Brushless isn't really used for lower cost drive systems, its because its lighter/smaller for the same power. They usually need slightly more gearing than an equivalent brushed setup as the motors are faster, so a common approach is to transplant a brushless motor onto a 500rpm gearbox. I think Pinski1's described his setup in another thread.

cheers

Mark