ORIGINAL: forestroke
you speak of models that are "stand off" scale so they're not use to being under close scrutiny. but that's not that bad... you should see some of the adverts here in taiwan. when they say scale, i click in to find pattern ships no where close to a real plane. some of the ARFs being advertise as extras are merely ugly sticks with a different cowl. even world models, has a range of aircombat planes that are really just low wing trainers they've put different cowls and covering on with no resemblance to the real plane.
I've got 2 of these things. One flying, and one still in the box. The zero is quite ugly, but it flies great, and with an old OS 32FSR, is quite quick. It's my favorite "beater plane". It's cheap, not so pretty, and not at all scale, but I fly it more than any other plane. The one in the box is a Yak. I'm thinking of bashing it a bit by adding retracts.