that's exactly it. At this scale of manufacturing, wood if the best option for (relatively) low precision large flat parts. And hay, if it's good enough for F1 cars
A principle in mechanical design is "as rigid as necessary, as light as possible". 3D-prints (PLA, PETG - not even CF) and wood, both fullfill this in case of the Rhino. Using metal is just a matter of design and perhaps manufacturing price.
Yoy could also look at the MFG crosswinds, also "wood" but a resin mdf that rival solid aluminium for hardness, although if you knew anything about metals its about the same hardness as frozen butter.
Its MDF painted with a high quality coating. I honestly thought it was injection molded plastic until I first took off the boot plate to mount the limiter plates where you can see exposed MDF in the screw holes.
~ 4000 hours of use in 7 years...i used to fly a bunch. I think what did it was that the finish was wearing off and oils,sweat,etc from my hands over that period on the exposed metal started some form of intergranular corrosion that weakened the part over time. BTW my other warthog grip SN in the 50k vs the 2500 for the first did not and does not show any of the same effects and is now older than the original one was when it failed.
I ran my other TM grip on a FSSB set to ~13lbs and it was fine for the ~200 hours i used it on the base. I did use the lego mod after the neck started showing signs of slop and had to keep tightening the neck screws in the grip. After that i just went to a RealSim grip. My TM hornet grip is also just fine but likely has less than 250 hours on it
the shell. I think i still have it here somewhere. It [the first one SN ~2500] started cracking around the base where the metal neck enters the grip and is mounted. Thats when i pulled it from service. Cracks in the powder coat. then after disassembling it the shell started cracking badly and was very brittle.
The wires here look thicker than those in my newer WH grip. When I disassembled to repair a broken CMS (my fault) the wires were very brittle and thin. Many of the solder joints broke as soon as the glue was removed and they were moved slightly. One of the wires broke internally as well. I re soldered everything and fixed the broken wire, and it worked