A number of years ago well over 15.I went to Al's Hobby Shop {RIP} in Elmhurst IL to get some rockets for the Boy Scouts. I saw the models but what really got me back into the hobby was the SAE in the magazine rack .After bringing it home reading it and doing some web surfing I discovered that the hobby was alive and well. I was amazed by all the after market stuff. The rest is history.
Model cars are only one segment of the hobby. I think that there is enough diversity to keep the manufactures from deserting any of the segments.
I know that my son and his Anime friends are into building those kind of models. Who knows maybe when our kids reach adulthood they might be building a Revell plastic model of the first Apple computer. A Round2 I Mac kit, or a Moebius kit of the original cell phone in a bag, so on and so on.
The future is bright
Mike