Hey, bubbaman.... I have found that it helps a lot to read reviews on a specific kit you may be interested in. Just search the reviews forum for the next kit you want to build, or better yet look at a WIP of the kit. Sometimes the positive or negative comments will help me decide if I want to tackle the kit at all. I stick to kits that don't have a lot of problems, mainly because I don't have the skills to fix them. There's good and bad from each model company, and the older kits seem to run into the most problems.......
Anyways, hope this helps some...