All good advice.

One of things that I do is to fly the plane before spending all the time putting in all the finishing details. If it flies -great (that is what I expect..)..if it doesn't, then I don't have thousands of hours of panstaking labour turned to splinters. The unfortunate side effect of this strategy, is that if the plane flies too well, I never get it back into the shop to finish it (I got 2 like that right now). One thing to consider is that the building is also an experience to be enjoyed, and not a neccessary evil to get through before you get a plane in the air.

As mentioned above, most all the crashes definitely seem to be pilot related. If you watch crash and burn videos you will see lots of examples of crashes caused by the pilot doing the wrong thing under the stress of the moment. Bear in mind that these videos focus soley on this negative aspect of modelling for "entertainment" purposes. Get lots of stick time on a heavy underpowered taildragger, or a flight sim..