Hi!
The "problem"(if it is a problem...) with glow engines being outdated in favor of electric motors , seems to be world wide fenomen, at least in the western world. More new comers today are beginning their R/C career by buying instead of building , their first plane , and that being a plastic plane powered by an electric motor. Glow engines is something they dont see working and why use anything that cumbersome when it's so easy to just go electric, turn on a switch and everything is working. You don't have the hazzle with understanding how the engine works and you don't have to clean the plane fter every flying session.
More people today are not interested in being members in a club as before, at least it is so here in Sweden and I think it's the same over in the US too. AMA is on the decline and so are many more national R/C plane orginisations.
I myself am biased, I prefere glow engines! I like the sound and the smell of glow and diesel engines running on castor oil and I like R/C planes being powered by every type of combustion engine as they show that the person that handles them "know something"! Electric motors are more like "toys"! You don't have to have any knowledge to handle them.