Good Point, Tedster. I would also probably lean more toward the ARC's. It might give you the chance to do a little "tweaking" on the airframe in some areas if you wanted to before covering, plus, as you say, give you any covering option you wanted.
I've also seen some of our club members buy an ARF and completely strip it and recover it to suit themselves. Probably still quicker than building your own.
I guess those of us who build regularly forget how long it took to get to the stage of being a decent builder. I know the first several planes I built weren't nothing to write home about, but they did fly. And to this day, I'm still not going to win any prizes for my iron-on covering jobs.
Randy