Jemez I think what is confusion is what you refer to as rec ball.
We call it house league which means you play in house teams and now they have gone to interlock which is a form of local travel ball. They had to do this due to falling participation.
Real travel teams here can vary quite a bit. Our City AAA team traveled up to a few hundred miles max and cost about 3-4 hundred dollars. The elite teams travel to tournaments all over the USA and as I am told start at about $5000. That includes a year around program. They started year around to compete with the warm climate players and it was very successful. There are about 25-30 elite team here in Southern Ontario competing for players that travel up to a hundred miles to play for a team.
Our AAA city teams also competed for players but the best players went to the elite teams if they could pay the freight. Our provincial team never competed well against Western Canadian teams because their were fewer teams competing for players and I believe that was because they had to travel further to play for the few teams.
One the Ontario elite players were allowed to play for the youth team they began to dominate the western teams.
The make up of a region can really affect how a region fares in BB. I don't know about Arizona but here rec ball is a total waste of time except for fun. Nothing wrong with that but to subject a serious player to that is inhumane.
I totally agree with doing your due diligence. We refer to ourselves as tryout junkies. We hit them all were possible. I found that due to competition for players you got the teams best training.