Walt, over a long period of time you have consistently used the VansAirforce forum to encourage builders to build to the best of their abilities. I suspect that comes in part from you seeing so many woeful build features in your commercial maintenance role.
And inevitably you always cop a fair bit of flack for your efforts to encourage better standards. It's the way it goes on VansAirforce.
I have a theory that the quality of an amateur-built aircraft is largely determined before the first rivet is set. It's in the mindset and general outlook of the individual...it's in the DNA....and everyone's different. That results in a very very broad spectrum of build qualities. Bill Kervaski says he likes to build on the basis of not leaving any shame behind. That's probably a philosophy of life as much as an aircraft building philosophy.