I connected two 3S batteries in series to equal a 6S battery. The total cost was $54 dollars, half as cheap as the big 6S. The two smaller batteries were also lighter and used less voltage over 9 minutes. The 6S battery was a little older so the test is not completely fair as far as flight time, but the cost of the two smaller batteries was much cheaper.
Four 15 minute flights approximately with no issues yet. It is not uncommon to see people hooking up batteries together in series or parallel.
You mean again and again and again. It was actually 3 crashes but only this one was bad. Yeah, definitely tired of rebuilding it, but on the bright side, I have learned a whole lot and have had a lot of fun doing it.