Some big kit maunfactures have indeed gone away, although I notice that Sig is and Top Flite are still out there. I like Sterling but some of there kit were boderline when flown. Anyhow, if you do a internet search for kits I thing you can find far more kits then you could in the 60"s. Building is something that you have to want to do, kit or scratch. ARF's will never kill that, lots of people prefer to build and some like the quick fix, there will allways be builders even if kits go away. Speaking for myself I like to build, taking sticks and building a flying machine will never be replaced by an out of the box airplane.....