I just got into flying and building about 4 months ago. I read and took a lot of advice from here and then bought both an ARF and a kit at the same time. The ARF allowed me to begin learning to fly very quickly. In the evenings, I was building. By the time I had finished building the kit, I had gained enough flying skill to fly it successfully. I'm now building my second kit. This approach has worked very well for me. After building my Sig SE, I was better prepared to make some necessary repairs after a particularly hard landing on my UltraStick ARF. ARFs have their place, and I believe we should encourage new comers to use both ARFs and kits. ARFs get more people into the hobby quickly, and kit building develops our skills and knowledge to help those new comers. Just my 2 cent worth.