AFAIK, it was a known fact 40 or 50 years ago that kits were overall good sport planes, but if one wanted something that flew better replaced the kit wood with contest grade balsa and ply. Emphasis was affordability, and affordable they were. To an adolescent, this was important. Most modellers then as even now were sport fliers. Not all are or were into cutting edge competition, and thus these kits met a need. Those ultra competitive designed and built their own, or bought plans of known performers and scratch built their own.

One flier would have a picture perfect finished airplane. Another looked homely except to the builder, full of pride and joy to see something that might appear sorry to some, but in their own eyes could say, "I made it with my own hands."

Even radios weren't as refined as they are today, we have come a long way from a controlled free flight aircraft with heavy radios to ultra light, powerful and smooth operating radio systems with added features.

Some of that heaviness in aircraft were so they could take some rough field handling. Nearly all modellers knew how to repair their plane, because they built it. We didn't see people salvaging parts off an aircraft and trash canning the rest after a crash like the ARF's of today.