My two cents worth;
I grew up with the dope and silk era, and I dont miss it at all. When Monokote came out, we all got strangled with Mom's iron cord when she pressed some slacks and found melted residue(transparant blue, chrome, whatever) left on them. I still have a Suprafly 45 arf sitting in the rafters, a great flier but what crap in terms of arf construction, you know, the foam and flypaper approach. I now fly an Excellron 90 with an OS120 two stroke in him and for the most part, he is a great ship. I used to have a chip on my shoulder with the arf guys that couldn't build, and the clone effect on the flightline, but I found that I have made some great friends with the newcomers that just assemble and fly. I'll take the guy who wants to come out and have fun anytime; in my own introspection I have found that I don't have quite the relationship with the arf that I did when I built it, hence I am a little more gutsy in the air. These arfs are making me lazy, they are pretty cool; however I have found upon fixing them for others after a crash that much more attention needs to be paid to the critical joints in the structure, ie., glue and or type of wood such as balsa spars. Sorry if I got wordy here.