To me a KIT is nothing more than an ARF just more to do.
Scratch builder see there planes as beautiful works of art that they spent months working on.
I see another ARF that should have just taken a couple days.

And unless you have done all three I don't think you can understand what the difference really is.
I try and would just brag like heck on someones scrath built plane. Then wonder why someone would
spend that much time and effort to build a plane that does not TO ME look as good as my store bought
one that I slaved two days building. Now this is an honest answer or whatever.

Don't care that your plane is kit, scratch, foam, built from a balsa tree lets just fly the dang things
together and enjoy each our own.

I don't see my kit built planes as being superior to ARFs, I do however feel pride in the planes I build where I feel no pride in the ARFs I own.
When an ARF crashes there is little to no pain but when a kit built plane crashes there is considerable pain and anguish because more than just the plane is lost, all of the hours spent building it are lost too.

That ain't necessarialy so. There are a lot of hardware items that are not available from any manufacturer, and so we make them ourselves. You ever see a really trick control horn? Chances are that the builder made it. Or how about a really scale tail wheel? There is not one that is available for the Waco YMF, so I made my own. It even has shock absorbing capabilities as well. The same applies to the strut mounts and the flying wire pads. Just because someone does not make it, does not mean that you have to compromise the scale aspect of modelling.

Bill, AMA 4720
WACO Brotherhood #1