Matthew, while I understand your frustration with repeated beginner articles in Scale Auto (and Fine Scale Modeler is the same way) if you read the questions both in the magazine and on forums so many them are new people that are entering (or reentering) the hobby wanting to know basics. If they pick up a mag at a hobby shop and all the articles are complete builds of contest quality models they would quickly be discouraged.
I know I often open scale auto or fine scale and go "not another air brush basics or not another adhesive basics"! But in the end they wouldn't be running these articles if there wasn't a demand from the consumer.
And in the different strokes for different folks, I love the diorama columns. I find it most frustrating that so much contest coverage totally ignores dioramas but that's a whole other topic....