RE: Unassembled Kits or Assembled Kits
What I would like to see is something close to the equivelent of "PNP" with planes. Basically a rolling chassis. Receiver, motor, ESC, battery, and charger not included, but at a cheaper price than the RTR that does include those things.
So much of the time I get an RTR and the first thing I do is rip out the worthless ESC and motor. The plug-in overnight charger sits in the box unused and eventually gets thrown away. The battery, if included, might end up salvaged for non-RC projects but typically it just sits around unused. The receiver and radio, likewise. I feel like RTR is just a way of getting hobbyists to pay for sub-par electronics that wouldn't get used or sold in a real secondary / upgrade market.
And in the old days when things were unassembled a whole class of people were kept out of the hobby by it. Now with RTRs you have the 'rich kid who depends on a LHS to keep it running' type of people being able to participate in the hobby. And before you mock them, having these types of people in the hobby helps to keep the LHS alive in the age of internet commerce. Hobby shops that are 'in the know' charge these guys between 30-60 an hour in 'labor' costs to fix their cars and get parts sales on top of this. Without guys like these in the hobby, more Local Hobby Shops would go the same way of the mom-and-pop corner store or the comic book / collectables shop.