You are right there is a down hill trend in our hobby. From where I sit, two reasons seem to be, 1) Cost of getting into the hobby, it is so expensive the younger folks can't do it, the parents are strapped with this wonderful economy they can't spend the money, 2) attitude of the older folks at the flying field, some will help if you have a model that they like and approve of other than that you could sit in a corner and wait. Over all it is cost, cost of the model airplane, car, boat what ever, they are almost all pre-made now, crash and fixing it is a long shot, so buy another one is on deck. Clubs used to get involved with groups of kids and build small inexpensive models, get the interest flowing, now they do not have the time for youngsters. AMA has totally priced themselves out of the picture for most of us, flying fields are such that unless you belong to AMA, don't even think about flying there, and some you must join their club also to fly at their field. MONEY.......MONEY and more money, wonder why the hobby is going away.