Sorry not sure what happened there, I tried to add a reply but instead just requoted everthing you said without making a comment myself! Screen went odd then some warning about a flood(?) and needing to wait 20 seconds to reply???!!!
Anyway, as I was going to say; its good to see somebody add their views without saying 'manufacturer bashing' or 'you're not a proper modeller if you can't use a craft knife'!
Life's just too short to kit bash and slice up new models just because they're not up to scratch in the first place.
Often when people critisise models, they are told by others that they 'just want everthing on a plate' and are 'not prepared to use modelling skills in their hobby'. -And, so what? If I wanted to buy a toy I would go to the Early Learning Centre or Toys 'R' Us. The fact is I am paying for a scale model , not a toy therefor I do not expect to have to correct mistakes on models by using scalpels and airbrushes. The technology is available to the manufacturers through computer aided design and research through the plethora of good reference pictures on the internet. If I can look at the internet to check for correct liveries and detail etc, then the manufacturers can do the same. With all this at their fingertips there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for any manufacturer to produce inaccurate models with incorrect liveries and completely ficticious detail. It is 2007 not 1967! Things have moved on!
And before somebody starts whining about prices and bits of detail falling off, you know what to do. Go and buy a cheaper more basic model! There are hundreds of older Lima and Hornby models on ebay if you can't find them in the shops.
I'm not too sure what the problem is about price either because by the time you have purchased a basic model such as the Hornby HST, added detail, and maybe a professional respray, you could have saved a lot of wasted time and spent just as much money if a super detailed one was available anyway. Just look at all those Lima models that used to get shown in Model Rail magazine a few years ago. They were sliced to bits with etched brass detail added all over the body, flush glazing added, the couplings cut off and crappy pipes added that easily break off and then a complete respray. A lot of time and money and a lot of work for one loco. Imagine a whole fleet and coaching stock and wagons treated to this aswell! Like I said, life's too short and this amount of correction is totally unecessary in this day and age.
A lot of passenger trains today are fixed formation multiple units from you're local stopper to the cross country and prestige express. Many are also overhead electric. How long are the manufacturers going to keep thinking that everything is still steam and diesel hauled and stuck in some sort of 'Golden Age'.
It is the 21st century and I think our modern flagship express trains deserve much more recognition and much better than some crude chunky toy with mis-matched or missing carriages.
How nice it would be to see a detailed Eurostar, GNER 225, HST etc. Maybe most of us probably wouldn't have the space for a full formation but the choice would be nice particularly for display.
These are iconic revolutionary trains. It's a shame their status is reflected in rather poorly portrayed, incomplete toys and not good accurate models.
Let's see more DMU's, EMU's and high speed trains please. (Proper models, not toys.) They are the bread and butter of the current rail scene. I can't remember the last loco hauled train I saw that was on a normal service and wasn't a chartered special.