I must admit I got into this hobby because of RTR four short years ago and quickly became addicted. Look where it got me, I now have a shop and track. I also had mechanical ability ( 1:1 mechanic for 15 years ) so working on it was no problem.
I see people every day that look at the price of a RTR then look at the price of a kit and all that is needed to get in going and 75 % go with RTR, if it was not available they would walk out the door. So I guess my point is that yes RTR is great for the hobby, but if something breaks or they need to do maintenance they stop running the car. On the other side if someone builds a kit they have time invested in it before they even get to run and tend to stick with it longer. I have had a limited amount of customers move up from RTR to a kit but this has been a small percentage.
This just seems to be a trend in our area.