My observation on that is that we are dealing with some extremely mature technology in this hobby. As far as aerodynamics goes, pretty much everything that needed to be discovered about what makes for a good beginner plane airframe was known by the early 80's. So if a new pilot picks a plane that has been produced since then, they are probably good to go. That doesn't mean that there aren't newer designs that work well; the electric technology we got in the last 10 years or so have made some foam designs possible that fly very well and have some advantages. But even still, any design that deviates much from the tried and true probably won't work very well.