I don't care to have an ARF, I prefer to scratch build from my own plans or those of others. However, I recently build an airplane from a kit. Now I have a set of plans and I could have scratch built the airplane from plans. Also, there is an very nice ARF of the airplane available. I built the kit because I could not do a better job from scratch, and I don't really enjoy making wing ribs. I did a little modification, a little mechanical updating of a '50's design, which I would have don to a scratch build or an ARF. And yes, the kit alone cost me about the same as an ARF. Not counting tools, glue, silk, dope.

Way I look at it, if I go to a movie, I pay so much an hour to be entertained. I consider an hour of building or an hour of flying as entertainment. So it is fine with me to invest a little more to get some more hours of building entertainment.

One thing I figured out about building when one doesn't have time. Break the build down into very small tasks. That way, you can spend 5 minutes and get something accomplished. You can't do everything that way, but a lot of building can be broken down into small segments.