For many years, I have experimented with balsa kits and with foam ARFs, and here are my two cents worth.

Balsa kits take a lot of time and effort to build and can be made to look very nice. However, they are not very strong and in case of a hard crash, not very easy to repair.

Bare foam ARFs do not look nice because of the rough surface, and they are not resistant to dings. Also bare foam is not sturdy enough for large size planes, anything above 25 to 30 ". However they are very easy to repair if crashed.

I wanted something that did not take too much time and effort to build, looked as good as a balsa kit, but was strong enough for 60" span planes and easy to repair.

To achieve the best of both worlds, I played around with combining the best qualities of foam and balsa. If foam is sheeted with 1/32" balsa if looks and behaves nothing like foam. Since sheeting can be very time and labor intensive if done with epoxy, I used contact adhesive Monsanto M77. This cuts down the time tremendously because there is no glue drying time involved. Once sheeted the model looks just as nice as a balsa kit but needs a lot less time and effort to build. It is more durable than a balsa kit because of the solid construction. It is very ding resistant compared to bare foam. Also it is very easy to repair.