MeThinks you are partially right and partially wrong: I believe the landing gear is made from a softer grade of aluminum. Like many kits of its vintage, this could probably stand replacement with a gear made of a stiffer grade of aluminum ... TNT Products makes excellent ones. Moving the replacement gear to fuselage mounting forward of the wing would also probably be a good "hack"

As for snap rolls with exaggerated control inputs: as the previous poster noted, the plane is designed for aerobatic manuevers and has a double or triple tapered wing. This means it snaps and spins easily, the amount of control throw should be adjusted at low rates to allow smooth control at lower speeds/more sedate manuevers, and care taken to keep the speed up during landings .... standard aerobatic fare. Its stall characteristics are not nearly as severe as say, the GP CAP231EX

The kit itself is well done ... as are most of Model Tech's products. I auctioned the one in the picture on eBay this past February, and it went for $130 delivered.

$159 is/was the "street price" before all of Model Tech's line of ARC's were discontinued in favor of ARF's.

So the previous poster is also probably correct that the current market value is somewhat below what your LHS is asking.