There is an overload of electronics for kids growing up nowadays. They don't want to go out of the house and play when they got all the smart phones, lap tops, tablets, gaming systems...etc. When I was young, I was outside playing until the sun went down. I commanded my own fleet of tanks (apple orchard), and I pretended to be Spiderman with a rope as my web; swinging from trees...now it's just easier to pretend doing all this kind of stuff in front of a 65" TV; connected to a gaming system for hours on end; without moving hardly at all.
Back in the day there were no RTRs or very little of them that I can remember. Now that is all you see. I don't know how all these RTRs came about, but I don't like it. I personally like building something from sealed plastic bags and parts trees. I'm thinking the RTRs started out as kits and one could add a discounted combo pack (battery, charger, radio) to ease a new person into the hobby. And then (I guess) that became popular so much that companies started incorporating their own brand of electronics into their assembled RCs for a bigger profit? There are a lot of cool RTR vehicles out there that I would love to get, but only if they were sold as kits.
Kyosho was all (well most of the big colored pages) you would see in Tower Hobbies catalog back in the day. I'm glad to see Kyosho came to their senses and back at Tower.
Last edited by RustyUs; 07-30-2015 at 05:43 PM.