There are still A lot of nice kits out there for those with enough skill to build one and have some pride in what they fly. However the ARF is here to stay and the kits are going to be A thing of the past or out of most pilots price range in not too many years.
I took to building from plans some years ago just to be able to have A plane different from what everyone else had. It's fun and easy plus most of the time I can do it for way less money, sometimes not.
If I was just getting into or back into the hobby I too would be going electric. The price of the high dollar batteries comes out cheaper by far at the end of the year when you figure out how much you spent on glow fuel, that's one of the reasons I moved over to gas too, I really hate having to clean off the engine snot at the end of the day.