Thanks guys, very final stretch now. Lost a gunsight in the bowels of the cockpit, but found an extra from the Tamiya Spitfire I can modify, so as long as I don't lose that one...
I have a question. Is the Tamiya kit worth the big coin it commands,and is it that much better than the Trump kit?
Is it better than the Trumpeter kit? Having now built both, I can firmly say yes, though frankly having built previous Tamiya 1/32s I would have been able to tell you that before. Looking at the Trumpeter kit I build beside me, and remembering things: the engine sticks too far out of the front of the cowling, Tamiya's doesn't. The exhaust area on the bottom just behind the cowling on the Trumpeter kit is just a gaping hole and the exhausts just kind of come out of it at roughly the right angle, but there's still an enormous gap, Tamiya's is very tight and well done. Trumpeter's cockpit is pretty much completely wrong, as it has a floor for some reason, which the -1 series (-1, -1A, -1C and -1D) didn't have. Tamiya's cockpit is very well detailed and correct. The front landing gear doors on the Trumpeter kit are hilariously wrong, it's like they didn't even look at a Corsair before making the kit. Tamiya's are correct. Trumpeter's cowling flaps have gaps in between each flap, while Tamiya's are correct in that said gaps are filled. Trumpeter's propeller blades are also the wrong shape.
Can the Trumpeter be built into a good Corsair? Absolutely, but it'll take a lot of work. Some of the fixes are easy, such as the cowl flaps and front gear doors. But you'd probably need to replace the propeller and cockpit, and I'm not really sure how one would go about fixing the exhausts. It's not worth $80 in my opinion, not even close, and some of those fixes, in particular the cockpit, may push you up to the price of the Tamiya anyway. Things that the Tamiya kit did better, that Trumpeter didn't do incorrectly, are things like the Tamiya kits limit the seams as they attempt to put glue seams on panel lines if possible, though there were more on the Corsair than the Mustang kit that had to be filled, but that will vary from plane to plane. The Tamiya wing setup is also much stronger, and Trumpeter's requires quite a bit of strengthening to be safe.
Basically to finish, if you like Corsairs, buy the Tamiya kit. It's a lot of money though, but the attention to detail is excellent and while in some spots it doesn't fall together, it's not a difficult build either. Something to think about too is that only the Birdcage is available right now, but judging by the materials that came with the kit (the reference book in particular) I'd say it's 100% certain that a -1A/D kit will come out, and it'd be a safe bet that we'll see a -4. It may benefit you to wait if you prefer one of the other versions. I'll probably build one of each.