you can get some amazing kites on aliexpress these days, the (innovative to me) reel winder took the last annoyance of kite flying out of the equation and the kids love them. I seems like the rigging from flying wings is the big innovation that could have been solved(discovered?) years ago but was not...

We used to fight kites when I was a kid. Bamboo frame, shield kites, really maneuverable. We’d line the first 20m of string with a mix of glue and ground glass.

If a kite was cut loose, whoever caught it could keep it, so naturally everyone ran after a free floating kite.

If you were really good you could entangle the freed kite in your kite tail or string and reel it in.