Good description Sincraft. To me, the trouble with buying an already built airplane or an ARF is that after that what do you do? You can keep on buying prebuilts and ARF's or you can build. If you go the prebuilt direction, sooner or later you're going to want an airplane, but can't find other than in kit form. By this time your flying skills have developed, but your building skills haven't. So your only choice is to have some one build it for you. Check out what people get for this. I hope you're sitting down when you do. To me the cost is prohibitive. Besides, I haven't even mentioned the satisfaction that is derived from the building process. There's something to be said for taking a bundle of wood and turning it into a beautiful aircraft. The satisfaction I feel cannot be put into words.
On another forum, a gentleman designed and built a WWI model. All week long he was describing his apprehensions. He flew it today and provided pictures. The plane is contest quality, but the neatest thing was the picture of him and his model, taken after the maiden flight. The grin on his face was teriffic! That is the satisfaction of building your own. It's not that it has to be contest grade. It's that you built it yourself!