It's cool, and the whole point is to have fun.

I just hate to see new guys with tons of enthusiasm show up and get discouraged because their planes are out matched and they don't do well.

As for combat planes, "neither". The current combat planes use a reinforced foam wing made from 25 or 40psi, often with an EPP leading edge. Spars are usually fiberglass rods, but sometimes other stuff as well. These foam wings will pretty much go right through a balsa/ply plane with little or no damage.

Fuses are all kinds of things, but generally simple and strong. Wingspans are usually around 64" with a lot of wing area for tight turns.

There are a lot of designs out there, including such planes as the Avenger, Battle Axe, Cobra, Fence Post, and several others I'm forgetting. And a lot of us build our own planes, since they are generally cheap and not hard to build.