Completely agree with you there, squirrel. Teams should go with whatever they have the ability to make. My point was that the problem Cyberphil had wasn't with aluminum - it was with 80/20. That stuff was designed to be very flexible in configuration, but you lose a lot of durability for that.
For that matter, I've seen teams build durable robots with kitbot frames and plywood. Play to your teams strengths and abilities
