Of course, every now and then someone will ask "Why can't Hornby reintroduce CKD kits to save money on assembly?"
Of course, its well known that the CKD models were a way to get around Purchase Tax and when VAT was introduced, they vanished because the kits were no longer cost-effective.
However, others will chime in with "Well, there's so many small parts in a modern loco/coach/whatever that modellers wouldn't be able to cope!" Yet anyone building an Airfix kit, even at the least complicated level (not including the Lego inspired stuff) is dealing with a large number of pieces to be identified, any flash removed and carefully glued into place. Individual sub-assemblies may also need painting before combining with other parts.
It may be a collection of (finely detailed) pre-moulded parts, but the success of the final object is a combination of the skill and art of the modeller.
I'm not sure what I started off to say, but I suppose that if we don't want to have to build all our locos and rolling stock from an Airfix style kit of that level of complexity just to reduce costs a little then we should be glad that there's people in China who are prepared to do something similar to the above for not a lot of money, and provide us with highly detailed models at fairly reasonable prices.
Of course, with an Airfix kit, the main challenge is in the assembly and decoration, the damn thing isn't expected to fly too!