Yes I agree totally with you bokuda. The older style planes are superb models and fly really well, but they really can't hold their own against the modern style. There will always be a place for them, just as many people still own and get immense joy from flying the vintage models like the junior 60. But to successfully compete now you really need something more modern. They don't have to be expensive either.

I don't want to go on about them too much (see the original post...) but really, the Synergy 90 almost-ready-to-cover version is a very reasonable price, would fly well with an OS 91fx and is 95% of it's 2m, $3000 version. Indeed on a calm day you'd be hard pushed to tell them apart and even in the wind they are pretty close. Affordable, modern competitive pattern flying really is possible.