I have about 20 or so hours in an HP-14 and 60 or so in an HP-16. Also have about 1400 hours in a Zuni, so fair amount of flaps only time.

The key with flaps is simple. You know that when you open spoilers, you add drag and you have to lower the nose to maintain speed. Well, flaps add drag, too, so you have to lower the nose because of this to maintain speed. Then, there is the secondary effect that is really primary. Draw a line through the leading edge and trailing edge of the wing. Note this angle on the fuselage, and relative to the tail Now, drop the flaps. Keep that line fixed at the leading edge, and the trailing edge of the flap. See how it is now tipped significantly relative to the fuselage and tail? You have effectively just added a bunch of incidence to the wing, so to keep it at the same angle of attack, you have to push the nose down. Inverse is true when you retract the flap. You have to pull the nose up as you retract the flap, as you reduce the effective incidence and angle of attack. That is what Bob means by feed forward. Add flaps, lower the nose. Reduce flaps, raise the nose. Until you are ready to touch down, you MUST stay above flaps up stall speed. If you do this, it is a piece of cake to do what Bob described.

As to your initial question.

Pros:
Not highly sought after, so low cost of entry.
Very good performance for what you have to spend. Nearly the equal or early Std Class Glass at 1/3 to 1/2 the cost.
Metal, so no gelcoat issues of you decide to tie it out.
Not too bad to assemble. Each one may have tricks to be done, such as order of installation of pins. On mine, it is Drag pin, lift pin, then main pins. On another I know of, the drag pin is the last pin on each wing. Learn the plane.

Cons:
Low entry price means low exit price and limited market to sell to.
Impression by others that they are "heavy and hard to assemble". The plane does carry more of its empty weight in the wings, but it is not too bad. A third person is helpful if you don't have a wing rigging dolly, simply because the root chord is 40 inches and the flap needs to be aligned with the driver as you bring the wing in to place.
Trailers are often not well thought out on Homebuilts. The builder spent all his energy on the plane, and the trailer may be an afterthought. Work on fixtures, and amaze your friends with how easy it is to rig.
It was a project when it was started, and it can remain a project for ever. Homebuilts have more opportunities for changes to be made than factory builts.

Why don't I have more time in mine? I have too many other toys!

Steve Leonard