DoogsATX
I'm building two 1/48 Razorbacks right now. One Tamiya, one Monogram (the current Revell reissue).
I'm actually very pleasantly surprised by how well the Revellogram fits together - the wingroots on the Razor are much better than on the Bubbletop I did last year.
BUT...in terms of the details, the R/M falls down. Hard. One piece engine, shallow detail, molded onto a backplate that also includes a thick intake splitter. The cockpit is the same one-piece tub. Not awful, especially for what it is, but it looks pitiful next to the Tamiya (or next to the Revell -N or the Academy Jugs).
Guess I dunno why you'd do that... You know that the Tamiya kit wouldn't be as simple as the Revell.. It's (Monogram) been around for 35 years, and was targeted at 10-year-olds... Think Tamiya targeted 12 year olds... 
But correcting either of these two would entail scrapping both entire structures and starting from scratch. In the case of the R-2800, it'd require sourcing an engine from elsewhere, the act of which alone would raise the cost of the kit to what I paid for the Tamiya ($20).
Well, that's only true IF you think like an assembeler instead of a modeler... See, an assembler only thinks in parts tha're made to fit this kit or that mount, and never where to get a source other than what's on a shelf or rack..
A modeler knows that the Revel P-61 kit contains a mostly complete P&W R-2800 radial, with partial exhaust, and also, (Here's the biggie) can cast a copy of it in resin... Morever, he knows that, once that molds are made, he can cast as many 1/48th R-2800s he's gonna need for the B-26, A-26, F6F, and F4U kits he's got planned too... Not to mention that the rear banks can be used to flesh-out any number of Continentals, Wrights, Sakaes, andBMWs too.. Cylnder jugs are cylinder jugs...
Casting parts is an essential skill of the modeler... It's also, while certainly not a basic skill like filling and sanding, it's essential if one is to ever advance "up the ladder", as it were.. Much the same as thermo-forming. You have to have resources and references that give you more than just paint-schemes and unit markings, or where the brake lines are, you need the ones that show what the engine-bearers look like...
It's kinda like being a general mechanic, vs being one at the dealership.. Ya gotta know how how to work on more than one kind of car. Squadron "Walk-Arounds" are fine for painters and decalers, but of little more use to a modeler than the pilot's handbook is to the airframe & powerplant mechanic or avionics repairer...
Then there's the thick canopy.
I'm currently pondering my approach to this...I don't have a vacform but I'm considering trying my hand at thermoforming. There's a vacform canopy for this kit, but it's part of a multipack that includes a bunch of other aircraft I don't have and don't intend to have. So $25 for one canopy, and suddenly we're looking at $40 for one kit...2X what I paid for the Tamiya and more than the Tamiya plus any aftermarket goodies combined.
Well, for what you pay for kits, you'd have had a vacuform a long time ago.. I have a Mattel Vac-U-Form, a kid's toy, from the 60s that I use to vac-form canopies... Got it for about 60.00 bucks on ebay a few years ago, and it's more than paid for itself... The pre-cut plastic is available from a guy on Ebay too... Sells both the clear and a solid white one...
It's actually my second Vac-U-Form, the first one I wore out years ago... But there's also a guy on Ebay that sells the parts to recondition Mattel VUFs... Plus he invented a few other parts that make it work better.. And if it ain't big enough for ya, there're planty of plans out there to make bigger vacufrm machines for a 100.00 or so in materials... Couple Tamigawas for ya, is all...
Bottom line there is that the Modeler's Tool List has way more on it than the kit assembler's list... And the skill-sets one needs to develope is what separates "us" from 'them"... Thing is, 90% of those skills are relatively simple...
For me, it's nothing to make figures do what I want them to do, but for someone that's never taken a saw to a figure, cut him apart at the joints, and then re-pose him the way he wants that figure to be posed, well... I think that's why Dragon is sucking everyone with a 12-16.00 kit of three or four figures every couple months, while I have an entire parts organizer full of arms, legs, feet, heads, and torsos and make the figures do what I want...
While we're on that, I don't get why someone can pick out the tiniest details on an instrument panel, but are stopped dead in their tracks with painting pistol belts, parachute straps or eyebrows...
Different people like different aspects of modeling. I like detailing, I like painting, I like weathering. I suffer scratchbuilding. I'll do it when called upon to get the model where I want it, but to me its about as much fun as pulling weeds or sanding seams.
Well, that's probably where you and I really differ.. I love ALL aspects of modeling... Sure, there are areas that I enjoy more than others (getting down and dirty into building cockpits, and if needed, the engine bearers is what I like the most)... I really resent the fact that "Tamigawa" thinks I can't handle cockpits! And they think that I can't handle one so much so that to "help" me they "help" to the tune of 30-50 bucks!
Whether a kit falls together with a rattle of the box, or I have to beat it into submission and build everything inside the fuelage and wings myself, it's all the same to me.. It's a P-51 in England in 1944, or an M109 in Ft Hood in 1985, or a PBR on the Mekong in 1968...
If that makes me less of a modeler, fantastic. I'm in this for my own reasons, and to me $5 is a very small price for not having to scratchbuild major elements of the aircraft or deal with a canopy that's made out of that 6" plexi the use in the shark tunnel at Sea World.
Makes you a kit-builder, IMHO... And anyway I'm talking about, not 5$, but 45$... I think that's another area we disconnect in, you an' I...
I don't have issues with kits that fall into certain price ranges.. 1/48 single seat, single engine fighters? .99 cents to 25.00.. But no... No 45.00 SS/SE kits, thanyaverymuch... (That's actually the upper limit for 1/32 scale aircraft, which is .99 cents to 45.00, Twin-engined in 1/32, I'll go as high 55.00)
I get you though.. You don't mind paying 50.00 if you get the part you want to do, and have the "hard" part done already... I get it... And I don't begrudge anyone for it, least of all you... I DO begrudge the manufacturers though... And we, as a group, CAN make them "bend to our will"... They certainly did it with the panel-lines... And metal barrele, and P/E parts... And before that? Well. It was, of all things, RIVETS! Yupper.. Those gawd-awful, hated, inaccurate, over-sized rivets that bedecked every kit in the 60s? Well... Thank the "accur-n azis" for that, because THEY were the ones that spoke the loudest and told the maufacturers that THAT was what they wanted! However, I digress....
Look, bottom line is this...
You're an artist... I'm a house-painter.... You build models, I build stories... But if I were an artist, I wouldn't want someone doing half my canvas and then charging me for it... So just gimme the basic airplane or tank... I'll take it from there...
You do great work, Doogs.. You really do... But you, and not a few others, constantly let these clowns tell US what we can build... If they wanna stay in the model kit business, and not start making parts for Ford ashtrays and Pioneer's CD front-plates, they need to start reeling themselves back in... Revell's PV-1 Ventura SHOULD make some of them take notice... 25.00 (more or less) for a BRAND-NEW, 2011 1/48 scale twin0engined aircraft kit... Now THAT'S what I'M talkin' about...
If you, a manufacturer, wanna REALLY help me (and, in turn, sell me your kit)? Then make a decal sheet with more choices of markings instead of one or two... Is it SO hard to do something like Monogam did with their the P-40 and give ya FOUR totally different choices (USAAC, AVG, CAF, and RAF in case you didn't know, although it was unplanned and you need to make a serial for the CAF)?
And put a friggin' figure or two in the damned box... For FREE!