Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. For me the best experience is designing an airplane, building it, getting it to work right and going out and flying it in competition. I would call that the complete modeling experience. Some would say that various parts of that experience do not appeal to them. Fine. I think it is very true that the manual and problem solving skills we developed are much rarer today. Most people today don't do anything that calls for the kind of manual constructive skills which building a model (or a hot rod, or fixing your bicycle, like we did years ago). One thing that has impressed me. I've seen a fair amount of professional level lab equipment which was very poorly designed and thought out. Clearly not designed by a model builder.
