Scratch building plastic models ranks right in there with churning your own butter.
Some folks are into it, some enjoy it and some are happy tossing store butter into the shopping cart.
Both can be very tasty!
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You often end up learning a lot more about the subject by doing the research. I also find corrections that need be made to the production model and also find details they left off the model to save on tooling costs.
Ultimately I travel a different path than you do and the view is different for me. For me it’s the journey more than the end product.
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Michael, folks that dislike research aren’t automatically focused on the end product.
The person may be more focused on a specific part of the journey. Whatever part they enjoy most. Sometimes that favorite part its the actual build process or painting process or weather process.
For you, it sounds like the research is a very fun part of the process. One of my close friends liked research and would spend incredible amounts of time on it.
Most rewarding part is painting and weathering to me. Building is fun enough. Research sucks for me because it takes time away from building and painting and my time is always limited. It’s ironic because I have a fat library for subjects of interest 
It’s all good as long as one has fun.
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This is not a debate or a he’s right and the other guy’s wrong type of discussion.
It’s a “different strokes for different folks” discussion.
Like the Psychiatrist says; “there are no wrong answers.”
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I am very impressed with the scratch building skills of many members of these forums. A number of people with YouTube channels focused on figures, models, and tabletop miniatures for gaming regularly demonstrate very advanced scratch building skills. In my opinion, computer assisted design and stereo lithographic printing are technologically advanced forms of scratch building. We probably live in an era where crafting is more innovative and widespread than ever.
If building, painting, and research are the corners of a model building preference spectrum, I probably sit very near the center. Perhaps that explains why I appreciate the efforts of builders, painters, and researchers about equally.
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When you scratch building, what are the tools you find the most useful?
Any unique tools that are especially useful?
Thanks for sharing 
Flat pliers with smooth jaw and square nose are one of my favorites. Quick bending of scrap photo-etch, crushing beading wire, soft wire or solder flat etc. Useful to make an exact 90 degree bend when bending to the side etc.
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Late to this party, as usual. Too much to comment upon without overtaxing my gray matter, so I’ll cheat with quotes and some lame comments.
@vettejack , masterful work there.
Very much so.
Yup. Limited by how many days we have left, how much money, and how much longer eyes and fine motor skills will allow me to enjoy this hobby.
Concur.
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I have bought from Model_Monkey. Great stuff, “Monkey around, have fun.” Great saying.
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Someone asked if Shep Paine and Verlinden would have used P/E and resin parts long ago. I concur they certainly would have. They, and others in the 1970s, used model railroad detail parts to substitute for components not available to military modelers. Same difference as using resin and P/E. Oh yeah, and there were aftermarket items available then - Waldron. Does anyone remember the diorama in a
Military Modeler Magazine, the cover story? For “gizmology” the modeler used model railroad air brake components inside the folding wings, and I think as the engine governor. (Note the other subjects: scratchbuilt T-28 and a DUKW.)
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Verlinden update sets included etch frets and his work promoted them, so yes, he certainly did.
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I’ve been using gizmology in all my builds for over 50 years. I ‘‘steal’’ ideas and equipment from scale railroading, auto, aircraft, Lowes, Home Depot and Ace Hardware. It’s what I know, and it’s cheaper. In my modeling world, the saying: “necessity is the mother of invention”, rings true. Even for a hobby. 
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I attended Modelpalooza over the weekend, 14/15 Oct. I didn’t look for kits, I perved the aisles of vendors for petrol-based paints and oils. For me, way easier to use and does not dry out in 10 seconds or less. My two cents.
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Jack, I hear ya. I found that the hardware store aerator screens for faucets make good screens over round inlets/exhausts for some diesel locos. I bet thewy have their place as FOD screens for some aircraft, and probably AFVs, too.
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They are dealing in antiquities, Model master Gelb olive.
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LOL!
Spot you a key of Poly-Scale
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Scratch-building is not dead. Just revived it for a build even though I am super into CADs and 3D printing. Just made this 105mm gun for M60 using Evergreen tubes after making a CAD of it. It still is a lot of fun. 
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Anyone who has looked at any of my builds will verify that I for one am a HUGE scratch builder. As an engineer, who has spent a career in looking at items and figuring out how to “make them better” it has been a natural for me to examine a kit that comes out of the box, decide that there are “details” or “functions” that the original manufacture chose (for any number of reasons), NOT to provide in the OOB kit, that I PERSONALLY was not satisfied with, and determine to ADD those details or functions.
Personal choice.
And for YEARS so much of that required that I take my trusty # 11 Exacto blade and my stash of Evergreen styrene and scratch build what I wanted, because that was pretty much the only alternative.
There is no doubt that once finished with my work there was a sense of pride and accomplishment that went with it, as I enjoyed the ability to look at something in a photo and reproduce something which represented what I saw in a reasonably accurate way (for me) which was better than leaving it out.
That said, there is an absolute time trade off in that process, and at 73 I’m finding that TIME is a resource that is becoming increasingly scarce and valuable.
So when ever I consider a project, and I realize that the finished product will probably NOT have the level of detail which I like if done strictly OOB, AND there are after market items, whether PE, or resin or 3-D printed which will add to the finished product, then I will absolutely consider obtaining them, even if as often happens the COST of the after market items exceeds the cost of the original kit.
Personal choice.
This is a HOBBY. And it is not my place to say that MY choices in how I pursue it are better or worse than anyone else’s.
If I’m happy with my result, I’ve pleased the only person who matters.
And the number of posters on this site, and the availability of kits and accessories available for them appears to indicate that this hobby is evolving, certainly not dying.
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I would take a metric ton of Polly Scale.
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