I have never posted to the ARF/kit debate, but just wanted to tell you my experience. I have been flying now for about 1 1/2 years. I am progressing well, and have not completed a kit yet. However, I am about to complete my SE and am close to the covering stage. I was not real excited about building again (I had built a CL plane about 30 years ago), but I started. Still wasn't sure even after working on it for a while. I am a real slow builder mainly because I work for an hour or two and then on to something else. Most of my long building is on the weekends in the winter. Good weather puts me out at the field flying. I started with ARF's, I like them, and I do check them out and modify if I think that something needs to be strengthened. Anyway, back to building a kit....it took me a long time to begin to warm up to spending the time to build, but it eventually happened and I want to keep building. However, I will continue to fly ARF's and buy those that I would like to fly. I don't look down on those who do, or those who don't. I do marvel at the scale planes and what builders can do with them. I figure it is a personal choice and I now like both.