Matt1977,
Couldn't agree with you more on that especially as you can take a park flyer to any reasonable size piece of open space including the local park and you don't have to know how to tune an engine etc and some of them are superb for the self taught.
The recent advancement has made it much easier to get into and has opened up the hobby to a much larger audience !!!!
There are still some dinosaurs out there that because they did it the old way IT'S THE ONLY WAY (some of them still think the world's flat as well !!!!!!) and it's suprising the number of not so narrow minded people at the club that I go to that have been flying for years and are now enjoying the simplicity of electric and quality of planes available that have as good and often better flying characteristics as their IC planes and now enjoy the combination of both !!!!!!!!
Personally I've never had the pleasure of an IC plane and wouldn't know where to start with one but love nothing more than the sound and smell of them when I arrive at the club - something you just don't get from electric !!!!! Just because I've only ever flown electric though doesn't mean I damn IC which often seems to be what comes back from some of the old school and I think it's such a shame and some of them have their heads buried VERY deeply in the sand especially if you then dare to mention that it may possibly be made of anything but Balsa !!!!!