Photoniq,
Have you ever considered something from Skyshark? I am building a kit from them right now and it is my first plane. I am flying a trainer right now and am getting a low wing ARF while I am working on this. But I have the fw190a8 kit and it has been really easy for me to build. The instructions are not as good as I think they could be, but good enough to be me through it so far. They do have a japanese Aichi Val which has a fixed landing gear so that you are not tempted with the retracts. Can't really compare to any other kits as I havn't had any experiece with other kits to this point. Anyways, hope this gives you something else to look at.