Sean, in your opinion who has the best AR-15 set up on the market and would you go 16' or 20"?
I'm a black rifle neophyte with owning/building them (all the rest are Colt's at work) - the DPMS lower and the Del-ton upper were recommended by a Master Sergeant at work, he has 6 of them. J&T was also spec as a great source for kits - which is what I did from Del-ton. It was fun building it, over the years I have become quite familiar with them, so it was not a stretch to build this one from a kit. Addicting actually, think I am going to get a 7.62 x 39 before the end of Jan...
AR-15.com is a huge resource (FLAMarine there), there are folks who spend an ungodly amount of $$ on rifles.
I was interested in shooters. I got the M4 kit and have the 20" A3 kit with the A2 upper, not the flat top coming. You can go nuts with this, spend big money. Basically there are two manufacturers of the barrels and most components - and they are branded from there. Working on optics for the M4, EOTech is what I am leaning towards for that- can't afford an ACOG, or I would get that. Have shot them with an A4 and they are amazing.