Strighten up
You are correct about Big Red Kite not leasing aircraft for hours building at the moment, you are also correct about the reason for this. Hours builders require a lot of support and it was not felt that this support could be given under the unfortunate circumstances.
To return to the subject of the thread as a Pilot I would fly the PA38 any day over the C152 but as an aircraft operator the PA38 is a non starter the spar life being the headline issue but it is the small things that come to bite you and as Smarthawk has said the supply of parts for the PA38 are drying up and it is not unconceiveable that the aircraft could be grounded for want of the smallest part.
As to the cost of a good C152........ That depends there are a lot of unloved dogs on the market you can spot these as they have poor paint, ancient avionics, high time engines, McCalley wheels & prop and the interior smells as if it has some type of pond life residing in the aircraft. Usually these aircraft have an asking price of about £15-19 K.
A C152 with good paint, a low time engine, avionics that include a good intercom and mode S transponder will probably cost you £20-25k.
There are a few real gems about these have in addition to the items in the above paragraph will have a Sensenich prop, very good interior, Cleavland wheels & brakes and most vital the Cessna SID's program done in full, these aircraft are fully ready to work and will have had considerable investment in terms of maintenance but you are unlikely to get one of these for less than £40K.
£40K for a C152 !!!!!!??????? I can hear that aghast comments from the floor, but the truth of the matter is that getting a £15K dog up to a ready to work, high reliability state will result in a total cost of IRO £40K.
A £40K aircraft is likely to cost very little to run over the next few years, the £19K aircraft will nickel & dime you out of a fortune and but the time you have operated it for a few years it may well cost you more than the £40K aircraft and still have a low residual value.
The £40K aircraft usually don't find their way onto the market as the owners have made the investment from operating a trouble free aircraft and not from trying to sell them into a market that thinks £20k is too much to pay for a C152 what ever the condition of the aircraft.
Sooner or later EASA will get around to outlawing the non compliant CAA LAMP maintenance program, when this happens the logical place to go will be the manufactures maintenance program and as you might guess Cessna consider the SID's checks part of this program.