Quote Originally Posted by rwanttaja View Post
Pretty simple, really: People are more willing to pay money to reduce construction time.
Yes, but I suspect it's not just that. I'll speak purely from my own experience, and that of a few others I know. I think a lot of people are building now not because they have a lifelong dream to build an airplane on their own. They want to fly, they want to travel, and they don't want to be saddled with a 30-40-50 year old airplane that will eat them out of house and home. Mama doesn't want to climb into something that looks and smells like it's been parked on the ramp since the 70s. If you want a fast, efficient cross country traveling machine and don't want it to be a decades-long project, well, now there are very nice kits for that, and an average person can build one.

I'm building something now from plans - all wood, slow, totally unsuited for anything but short-range fun. That came after the RV. It may or may not ever get finished.