RE: dear sig mfg
Having a couple of firends in the ARF import business, I can say that often the loudest product requests don't always translate to actual sales. A friend of mine produced a few ARC versions of his popular ARFs, after been persistently hounded on about it, only to sit on the ARC inventory unsold for years. (I got one of those ARCs, a .60 P-40E, at my house BTW) Many folks asked for ARCs, only to back off from it when they find out the ARC is $379, while the ARF is $399.
Same thing goes for kits. Would you be willing to pay $329 for a Sundancer kit, when the ARF sells for $399? For the importer, assembly cost constitutes only a tiny portion of his overall cost, the majority of which is in product design, material procurement, parts fabrication, packaging, transportation, advertising, distribution, and support. Frankly, if Sig actually sets the Sundancer kit price according to the relative cost compared to the ARF version, it will probably be $389. They would have to thin the profit margin on the kit version just to attract enough interest. Even then, the minimal revenue they can expect to gain on selling kits won't be anywhere near enough to recoup their setup cost.
You are also assuming the pile of parts the factory uses can be dumped on your workbench for you to assemble just as easily. Many ARFs these days are designed specifically for jig-rigged assembly line production, not hand pinning on a flat board over plan.
I feel your pain. I started RC 20yrs ago with kit- and scratch-building and enjoyed it tremendously. ARFs were in their infancy back then and not at all very appealing (EZ had their laminated foam board over wood frame crap). Times have changed. These days, you can buy a 42% Ultimate on Friday and fly it on Sunday. The RC world is better off because of what ARF brings... choice. You can still kit- and scratch-build to your heart's content - but you don't have to in order to enjoy flying RC. Whatever your feeling towards ARFs are, for the vast majority of the RC public, that choice has been profoundly empowering.
Sure there are a few less kits around these days, but if they are really as great as some of you seem to think, then the manufacturers wouldn't really want to kill a cash cow now, would they? Fact is, factory floors and distributor warehouses are only so big, and they would rather stock them with fast-moving ARFs then sell-1-in-a-year kits. There are still plenty of kits and plans for sale out there, and new designs do show up from time to time. Why fixate on a few old by-gones?