I've been building balsa kits going on 48 years now. I enjoy building, always have. Like one of my friends told me, "when you're either building a kit or scratch building, YOU are in charge of "Quality Control."" I like that part of it. Seen some ARF's that I wasn't too impressed with some of it, but couldn't readily be changed.
I've put together a couple ARF's, some for others, and one Funtana .40 for myself. The quality of that Funtana ARF is outstanding, as well as some of the others, H9 P-51, etc.
One of the problems I see is that there are some people showing up at the field who have never flown, and come in with an ARF that certainly isn't a trainer. And when you try to explain to them that this is not even close to the first plane they should be learning on, you get the "deer in the headlights" look. They just don't understand that, until like someone farther up on the thread said, "Splat!". Makes for a steep learning curve.
On the bright side, several of our members basically learned to fly on the "Real Flight" simulator, and came to the field and in one case, I removed the buddy cord on his third flight and he's been on his own ever since. He realizes now how many airplanes the simulator has probably saved him.
If you got the time, building is OK, but lots of folks today don't have that kind of time (or patience in some cases), in which
the ARF route is perfect for them. I just don't like showing up at the field with 6 other duplicates there like mine. But that gets interesting when they all get in the air at the same time!!!
Randy