When I got into the model hobby back it the 50s there was no such thing as an ARF. Luckily there was a real good model craftsman that lived down the street and he taught me some of his considerable skills. If you wanted a model built you made a deal with such a builder. The usual deal was you bought 2 kits and the all materials to finish the 2 planes and you got one finished model out of the deal.
The first ARFs I bought were a pair of Prince 25s from Indy RC back in the mid 80s simply because they were very cheap....about the same price as a .25 sport kit. These were my "disposable" fun airplanes. Actually flew well and quality was not too bad but not anything near the quality of modern ARFs.
As to the demise of kits.....we are loosing the old craftsmen and with the fast pace lifestyles there are fewer apprentices with the time necessary to learn the skills. There is less & less demand on kits and the short production runs and large investment in tooling to produce them results in a higher cost to make the kits and a higher price to the consumer. The converse of this is true for the ARFs due to their higher demand.....now you have good ARFs selling for less than he price of the kit and materials to build it. So, sadly, I predict we will continue to see this trend.
PilotFrog