RE: Are we really this bad?
Being somone who got a start cutting parts out of printwood, (And even cereal boxes, like from Wheaties) I definitely prefer to build. Over the last 20 or so years, I've developed the impression that people who come out to the field with something they bought as an ARF/RTF package deal often loose interest in a very short period of time. Never developed that Stick-to-it-iveness.
Right now, someone whom I remember when he was coming out to the field with his father, proud of the planes he himself built with dad's help, is now enthusiastic about some of today's ARFs. Can't get in the air for the price and time investment by building. Hasn't stopped him from still building, or teaching his own sons to build, but is building up his proportion of ARFs to home built.
I do kind of like some of the small electrics, especially because they let me fit in a quick flight or three at the small park across the street from my house. And when I was still employed, it was a kick in bad weather to walk over to the loading dock or engineering garage after work with a small indoor electric RC plane or helicopter. But, it was at least as much a kick to set up a stooge on my desk or workbench, and put a few hundred turns into a Parlor Mite or EZ-B and walk to those same areas.
Except for a few Cox Plastic RTFs, I have never had an ARF or RTF last as long as many of the planes I've built myself, except for a Kyosho Cessna Cardinal. That one survived about 10 years. Just about all the rest gave up the ghost within a year or two, ususally because of inadequate glue joints and structural weaknesess, especially landing gear mounts and firewalls. One even had mismatched airfoils on the two wing panels.
But then, times and peoples' attitudes are changing. Back in 1962, when I got accepted for the local community college, you had to show you were ready for college work, with written tests and face to face interviews. We had no drop-outs in my class, except for a student who had to move out-of-state. The course was 138 credit hours and completed in two years. No ifs, ands, or buts. When I went back in 1980 for some refresher courses, some full-time students were only taking the minimum 12 credit hours per quarter, and needing sometimes 3 or 4 years to finish business and liberal arts curiculla, and as much as 6 for the engineering and chemisty degrees. And over half the kids coming out of high school needed one or more remedial courses before they were ready for actual college level work, and at that, the drop-out rate had grown to almost 30%.