[willy]

as far as I am concerned it is and always will be a case of pay to play.
for some like Skools and Ferm and other guys on here that are mechanically trained and experienced they pay in their time, time fixing their own stuff but even they have to pay, just less thats all.
also as time advances and the newer stuff comes out the more removed from fixing the average guy even with good mechanical common sense is removed from fixing his own stuff, especially in the engine arena.
The first boats I had had smaller older engines and if something was not running right I could stumble along and eventually even this blind squirle would find the problem nut.
When you buy the newer engines the past decade and a half you need a electronics degree to figure it out, along with the special programs and wiring harnesses to hook to your laptop to diagnose it. And usually now you don't fix that much you just find out what is wrong and replace it.
It is the trade off for more reliability for the consumer.
Remember the days with your 14-18 foot aluminum or fiberglass boat, manual everything on it, maybe a 15-50 horse Johnson or Evinrude or Mercury on it that you could always coax to life even when something was not working.
Those days are gone.
Good luck with what you choose boat wise, either way you will eventually be paying the Gods of the Sea for the privelidge of plying their waters.
I would thing very hard about buying a skiff type of boat unless you intend on low speed running in shallow edge of bay waters. I have been on several and they beat the snot out of you by the end of the day.
Even the Florida guys who have vast shallow flats to fish have gone to the nicer hull designs that are more sea worthy and dry, but still give you a decent ride for a flats boat. But even those if you get in a good chop and got to make a run in will leave you feeling like you just went ten rounds with a WWF champion.