If you watch any of the muscle car auctions on TV, pretty much all you see are optioned-out big block cars. Even cars that started out with small block V8s or even sixes are being "restored" as big-block "tribute" cars. So the model companies see what sells in the big car world and that's what they make to sell to folks like us. It's a kind of revisionist history at the very least. If I didn't know better I would think that everything made between 1964 and 1973 had big-inch motors after watching these auctions and seeing what the model companies sell today.
I remember when I was living in Tucson, Arizona in 1974. The oil embargo that started the year before caused many people to unload their gas guzzlers for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. I saw MANY muscle cars on used car lots for stupid cheap money. At the time I didn't have two nickels to rub together! Now they are selling for big coin.
I have owned one car that could be considered muscular- a 1970 AMC Javelin SST. It did not have a 390- it was a 360/auto car. I bought it with my bonus money I received after joining the Army in 1974. The price? $1200.
On the subject of Lindberg- yeah, a lot of their old stuff was pretty toylike. But most of the kits they did in the 90s and early 2000s were pretty decent, overall.