USFA just came out with a study about the effectiveness of AFCI
you may want to take a look at.


Personelly working daily as an electricain they are making a difference.
they are catching potential problems before the home is turned over to the home owner but lets face it builders do not want this fact known just how bad the quality of the dry wall work being done in structures is and the amount of times drywall has to be ripped off because the AFCI's are catching nail strikes etc.
I just had one of my customers have a bedroom hall light fixture catch fire in there 10 year old home luckily little damage they were home and shut power off immediately. Which had been recalled unaware to them and an afci would have stopped the incident from happening.

Personelly in my own home which was built in 60's i replaced several of the older breakers with afci when i upgraded my circuits.
They are life savers dispite all the noise builders are causing.
the same builders who do not want to put sprinklers in.

My personel opinion of builders of most of the homes in my area is they are lower than pond scum.
I am constantly catching crews undersizing drywall using 1/2 instead of 5/8 on fire walls illegal and improper wiring practices etc.etc etc etc
its put them up as cheap as you can get the biggest buck you can not pay your sub contractors and walk away and provide no service after wards.
While we have some excellent buiders and contractors around here the vast majority are nothing but slop artists.