These are some photos of the original kit construction, as I purchased it. Note how the components are sitting high up above the board, with long leads down to the circuit board. This is bad for a couple of reasons - there's more wire around, so there's more capacitance between leads and possible microphonics and feedback. Also, the components can be accidentally bent and touch, causing shorts.

I spent several eventing resoldering most of the components. I could generally get 1/4" or 1/2" of wire by shortening the leads. The jumper wires were all shortened by about an inch or so.

Check out the leads on the coils below, and how they can flop around.

Resoldering a component consisted of melting the solder from below, drawing most of the molten metal off with a "solder sucker" tool, and repeating once or twice until the component could be pushed down against the board.

Solder side of the board. There's a lot of excess rosin left on the board - this can be cleaned up with denatured alcocol and an old toothbrush.