ORIGINAL: bigedmustafa
Most RC flyers take off and land on grass air strips rather than on paved runways. Nathan is spoiled by flying at one of the nicer flying sites in the Midwest, Hawk Field in Omaha, NE has a 500' paved runway and is so nice that it was featured as an additional flying site for Aerofly Professional Deluxe's first expansion pack. Ikarus even used flying scenes from Hawk Field in their magazine ads.
Yes, last time I was down there I sat flying my 80% H-1 Racer with a plate of squid, chortling as I thought about all of those "park flyer" people in disgust.
Seriously though, it's easy to forget others have different facilities. Yes, if you fly off lumpy grass it's a good idea to do a light reinforcement.
I think every airplane I've purchased had people complaining about the "weak" landing gear. I've never managed to break gear or gear mounts, and my flying is nothing special. I typically don't give those complaints much weight unless they are VERY widespread. Unless the strip is so lumpy that it's shearing off gear regularly I don't think there will be a problem with most ARFs. And if it is, it really isn't the manufacturers fault.
I think that Venus repair would be an ideal way to gently test the waters of airframe repair.