ORIGINAL: Ed Cregger
Their prices are too high. I hope Great Planes/Tower/whomever doesn't carry forward Lanier's extravagant pricing for Goldberg planes.
I like Tower and friends, but they've gotta get their heads removed from the nether regions. They got where they are by offering good products at LOW PRICES. Not by trying to claim that everything is a Cadillac and charging too much. Ditto the OS .56a, etc. Time to get real, folks.
Ed Cregger
I think the pricing for Goldberg and Lanier products should get straightened out fairly quickly. Tower just dropped the price of the CG tiger 2 kit $25.00, which was way overdue. With the Tiger .60 kit selling for $109.99 and the Tiger 2 selling for $99.99, I couldn't imagine anybody not spending the extra ten bucks for a larger, more stable aircraft.
Sorting out the Lanier and Goldberg product lines and reconciling them with the GP, TF, Hobbico, Dynaflite, and Tower Hobbies product lines won't be easy. I'm more concerned that classics like the Tiger, Skylark, Protege, Eagle, and Falcon all survive at any cost when they're direct competitors to the PT20/40/60, Hobbistar, Kaos, Avistar, etc.
As for the pricing of new O.S. engines, I think you can blame the Federal Reserve for that rather than Tower Hobbies. The dollar continues to plummet against the yen, the Euro, and the pound. The AX .55 and AX .75 are really pricey too; it's not just the new .56 4-stroke. Horizon will likely run into similar issues with any new Saito engines that might be announced.
Buying anything labelled "Made in Japan" will be costly so long as the U.S. dollar continues to bounce in value between the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar.