So if I hire someone to build me a real nice plane from scratch, or take an ARF and detail the heck out of it only the plane built from a scratch could compete? Just playing devils advocate, but it's still and ARF if my buddy makes it from scratch or someone makes it puts it in a box and sells it in a hobby shop. If the plane can compete, then let it compete. There really aren't that many nice ARF, so I don't know what all the noise is about. A glass fuze sure makes things a lot easier too, but that's not an ARF, maybe it's a ARTC...can they compete?

The more people we have in the hobby the better it will be for our future. If you are worried about people loosing building skills, then find a young person and mentor them and help then learn to appreciate the joy of building from scratch. That's whay my uncle did with me