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djdojo said..
What a complete POS. I can't believe the contempt that many manufacturers have for their customers.
It is not as easy as it sounds. As weight is very important for the performance of a foil boards, and most customers are very sensitive to price, you have to find the best strength / weight / price compromise, on a domain where long term constrains on a boards are not well known, as the constraints differ for kite / wind / surf / SUP / wing ... boards. Add to this that unlike one-man shaping/glassing operations, which tend to not really count the hours (and are often greatly underpaid compared to the hours spent), time to build a board is real money for mass productions, and fancy reinforcements take a lot of time.
So, you could say that many customers have contempt for the amount of time of effort manufacturers (of all sizes) put into their work by always demanding lower prices and/or rebates.
Also, mechanically, you want to dissipate the efforts. The reinforcements should have some kind of progressive (tiny) flex to dissipate and absorb the forces without suffering from stress fatigue in the long term. E.g. Just adding strong carbon pillars may just shift the failure point some inches away if this is not taken into account. It takes time to refine these kind of mechanical designs.
Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion, I am not speaking for anyone else here.