I think we are mostly in agreement. I am willing to concede:

1. Your foamies are great fun.

2. For such cheap craft whose sole mission is to entertain, the cut-and-try design process is the only one that makes any sense. In fact, though I am able by education and experience to do engineering design, I use cut and try on most of my model aircraft. Even a typical .40 size machine is easy and cheap enough to build that it’s easier to just build it and try it. Besides, I would rather spend my hobby time gluing balsa and stuff together than putting rows of ciphers on a note pad. Even full size aircraft (some rather famous) were largely designed that way in the first half of the century of flight.

3. Since the only requirement for your foamies is to entertain, anything that will fly, and can be controlled will do. With such a loose mission, it’s realistic to assume that cg, airfoil, moments, etc. don’t matter, and under those conditions they really don’t. This is reinforced by the lack of test data in the range under consideration. If it’s fun it’s a success.

That may well be changing. With the current interest in little flying “spybots” with wingspans measured in inches rather than feet, and very sophisticated missions involving not only pre-programmed but self directed flights, there may well be extensive test data produced which will facilitate effective analytical design of little aircraft. With critical flight profiles, limited power available, and relatively high cost per copy, cg, airfoils, moments, etc. will be important.

There is nothing about being little that makes an airplane exempt from the basic laws of physics. Airplanes from your foamies to the Boeing 747 all operate subject to the same principles of flight.