ORIGINAL: Lilredmachine

Dunno if anyone has pointed this out yet, but kits are more expensive to produce for companies than RTRs. With kits you need thick manuals, well designed boxes, loads of individual pieces in bags weighed to see whether they contain the right bits or not, decent box art, paints, option parts such as spurs, pinions, different suspension parts for camber/ackerman/toe in/toe out adjustment (my XTM Mammoth pro kit had no less than 6 extra 7075 alloy suspension pieces i didn't even use), glues, silicone oils, diff grease, (the last three, think how much you waste or keep back when you fill a cars shocks/diffs etc. up the first time... Then time it by 10/20/30 thousand, and that is how much the company doesn't buy for you to waste by having someone fill each one up at the factory from the same bottle). The RTR, much like the production line in cars, is a natural development because it is simply a lot cheaper and easier for companies to manage.

The cost of employing the staff, giving them basic tools and a mediocre wage to build the cars/planes/boats whatever is nothing compared to the costs i have listed above.

I like a kit, and I like it to be good, have everything fit and be enjoyable to build. Quite simply, for me to have that a company has to be seriously committed to high quality rcs, whatever the cost. That is why companies such as X-ray, Associated, Losi (though less so these days, also HPI) are considered higher up the scale than Traxxas, who only really care about profit margins hence everything is in RTR form.