Geez, from a relatively inocuous question (the title of the thread), the inevitable pissing contest about who prefers what happened. Reminds me of "Which oil is the best for gassers" pissing contests of the past. There's been so many of them, it became absurd.
The way I see it, ARFies have come a long way so now there is room for both, ARFies and Builds. What's wrong with that? We the modelers benefit. There was a time when Howard Johnson's only had 1 flavor. Besides, if you had the knowledge to do custom work, an ARFie is fair game.
I agree... You can now purchase 1/4, 1/3 and in some case bigger ARFs. Not to mention that most of the best acro. pilots are actually using ARFs, and have being doing so for quite some time... Unfortunately many people seem to link ARFs with cheap, and foam:-) I saw some pattern ARFs recently and the prices were, well, how can I say very, very expensive!
Gerry