If there is a market for kits it will be served. If it is too small for mass marketers to bother with then others will step in. The invisible hand of the market always sorts it out.

For example, it looks like there is a trend in large scale models for the designers and kit cutters to be entirely independent. But you can still get a kit (or sorts) if that is what you want. Maybe thats how things will go. A handful of popular designers and a separate pack of kit cutters.

Okay, here is a wacky idea: the kit market could goes completely "cut to order". Log on to a web site, select design, submit order, computer charges your card, computer queues up your order on the laser cutter, computer sends printer the plan, computer generates a packing list with the misc. hardware items, accounting system automatically cuts a tiny check for the copyright holder on the plans. Human packs the box. A few days few days later you get a kit in the mail. It's up to you to download and print the manual if you want it. No production runs to schedule, no stocked kits sitting on a shelf tieing up money, no distribution worries. Quickly, everyone figures out who the best designers are, who the best kit cutters are, and the old fashioned kit companies (who depend on gigantic production runs to make things economical) disappear.

I think this race has already started.

Am I crazy?!?