But the receiver ! It's 4 transistors, 2 ICs, and 5 coils to wind. If that's not enough fun yet, you also get to etch the printed circuit board

Hue, just my opinion - but both hams, and the ARRL of that era was very different than it is today.   The spirit of mentorship was strong and  young hams would have likely been able to find a local "Elmer" willing to help them along.  QST was still primarily a technical journal filled with construction and theory articles to help hams advance their knowledge of electronics and communications.  Part of that was continuously revising the Handbook and other publications like the one you acquired, to reflect the "state of the art".    It was part of their mission to educate hams about emerging new technologies - one example being the "Lets Talk Transistors" series in the 1960s, and they did the same when microcomputers came along.   Specialized techniques like SSTV, CW keyboards, RTTY and PSK were all highlighted in ARRL publications just as SSB had been in the 50s and FM in the 70s.

I'll certainly agree that having to make your own PC board was  a heavy lift for a teenager with an interest in ham radio and that introductory publications like this would have better met the readers needs with simple easy-to-build projects even if they were based on older technology.   As an example,  Don Stoner published several articles showing how simple converters could be used ahead of BC-453 receivers to make very good performing receivers.   Those sets were almost literally "dime a dozen" back then and a simple one or two band converter could have been built using either a tube or a couple transistors and point-to-point construction.   With the 85 kc IF and stable LO, the performance would have been far better than most simple receivers and the builder would gain some experience without having to undertake the burden of the metalwork etc.   Of course Stoner wrote for "brand X" and the ARRL always had it's own ways and strongly-held attitudes.

My frustration with the ARRL is based on their abandonment of this time-honored educational mission in recent years.   I'm afraid that we'll see continued "progress" along the same lines.

73, Bob W9RAN