Like most of us in this hobby, I don't have unlimited funds to buy anything I want whenever I want. Each decision for what brand and color of paint, what type of glue, which aftermarket pack to buy, has to be carefully weighed to get what I want (or close to it) so I can finish the current project the way I want to.
This, to me, is where a magazine like FSM can do much, much more to benefit both subscribers and casual readers. I was thumbing through an oldddddd 1986 issue and found a Special Report with detailed chapter and verse on every kind of glue you could want to try - complete with a summary table, what each type and brand worked best on, how strong the bonds were, most importantly what each kind didn't work on, in short, everything I would need to make an informed decision.
The only recent example I've seen in FSM was Aaron Skinner's excellent acrylic paint test Special Report in the November 2007 edition, where he admits that the last time FSM did a similar evaluation was 10 years ago (that's too long). He named names, listed specifics for each brand, and even showed the coverage results for test swatches from each brand.
That is the kind of information I need to make informed decisions about where to spend my $$$. I'm not saying that every issue of FSM should have a Special Report on paints or glues or hobby websites or what have you - but I am suggesting that having the magazine do some of the basic scut work research for its subscribers will allow all of us to spend more $$$ on what we want to - modeling!