Kit terms

A newly tooled kit is a kit that is brand new from the top down. Sometimes you'll see kits that have some parts that are newly tooled, which means that the majority of the kit is from earlier release and it has some new parts. Companies can be ambiguous with their package marketing, too. Just because a kit box has "new" on the top doesn't necessarily mean it is a new kit (new parts or all-new tooling). Could be that it is a re-release and it has new markings, or it is new for a particular market. 

Hope that helps.

Most definitely does help.  Thanks for the info!

You may be looking at an 'old tool' kit of a vintage of say the 60's to 80's.   The kit might have raised panel lines and be heavily riveted.  The small parts may be overscale or clunky, they were designed to be produced at the limits of the injection molding process of the time.   

A 'new tool' kit of the same subject as the 'old tool' kit may feature recessed panel lines and perhaps recessed rivets.   The limits of the process have improved, and small parts have become better defined.   Hidden details such as a full cockpit may be included where the old tool was a pilot with a peg in his side you glued to the fuselage wall.  Research into the prototype may have also shown that the old kit had some shape errors which have been corrected.

New tooling is not of and by itself inherently 'better'.  Some modern kit manufacturers produce kits with ridiculously small parts which drive the parts count and complexity.  Why do something in 5 parts when 20 will do

"New tooling" as Ed noted being the more accurate phrase.

I find it helpful in cases where a kit company may have produced the same subject in a series of models and you want to know which is newer.

A somewhat valuable source of information is scalemates.com. They have a history of the kit, which other companies "reboxed" or sold it, etc. Learning how to search that site takes a little practice but the quantity of information available is good, as it's member-generated.

Bill