Privateer - You're demonstrating a great deal of good, solid sense. I can testify from personal experience that the Model Shipways Phantom is an excellent kit for beginners - and not just for them. When I built mine I'd been building ship models for about 45 years; I bought the kit because I was looking for a short-term project, and I liked the look of the ship. Here are some photos: http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyPhantom/index.html
The kit I bought, three or four years ago, was an oddity that's no longer available. MS at that time was experimenting with the concept of the cast resin hull. I rather liked the one in the Phantom kit (though it did have some minor problems), but apparently it didn't sell well. Model Shipways is now selling the kit with a machine-carved basswood hull, more-or-less identical to the one with which the kit debuted, back in the late fifties or early sixties.
I did have a few, relatively minor reservations about the kit - some or all of which may be irrelevant to the current version.
1. The instruction book, while generally a pretty good production, probably would be a bit vague and sketchy for a newcomer. I think the $69.00 deal includes a copy of George Campbell's book, The Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay. That's a fine publication, which should help get you over the rough spots. I've said several times in this Forum that if a person learned everything in that book he'd be well on the way toward being a knowledgable shiop modeler. The book by Ben Lankford that I mentioned earlier in this thread is also excellent; if you get both volumes you won't regret it.
2. My kit contained some fittings that didn't really belong in it. There was, for instance, a package of "deadeye strop rings" that were designed for deadeyes at least four times as big as the ones in the kit. I hope somebody noticed that mistake and fixed it.
3. The copper tape included in the kit to represent the sheathing on the underwater hull is good, workable stuff, but it's twice as wide as it ought to be. (I think it is in fact the material used by stain glass window hobbiests.) If you lay it out in lengths of six inches or so, with the paper backing still on it, and slice it down the middle with an Xacto knife (with a metal straightedge as a guide), that problem will be solved in a few minutes. This is an excellent kit for learning the principles of copper sheathing. Even with the narrower "plates," you can do the whole hull in a couple of hours.
Don't expect the kit to provide you with every single thing you need to build the model - in terms of either materials or information. But with a bit of ingenuity and a few weeks' worth of effort and spare time, it can be turned into a really nice model. Even my wife, who isn't easy to please in that regard, thinks so.
Later edit: After I typed the above post I took a look at the Model Expo website. There was no mention of the "we'll refund your money if you finish the model" offer (I guess that's only in magazine ads), but it does feature a detailed, 39-page "practicum" on how to build that specific kit. It's a PDF file that can be downloaded from the web and printed out. My clunky old home computer wasn't able to download the whole thing before I went to bed last night, but on the basis of the photos in the beginning I'm confident that it's excellent. I suspect it would tell a newcomer everything he/she needed to know about building the kit.
Three cheers for Model Expo! The combination of that practicum and the refund offer should persuade a lot of people to take the plunge and get into wood ship modeling. The company is also in the process of re-releasing quite a number of the Model Shipways solid-hull kits that so many of us grew up with. They are, for the most part, excellent kits, combining fine plans, sound materials, sensible construction methods - and interesting subjects. Now if Model Expo would just quit promoting those gawdawful HECEPOB (Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank On Bulkhead) monstrosities from Mamoli, Artesania Latina, Mantua, etc., etc.....
Good luck. It's a great hobby.