I wonder why these really high end infill planes aren't brought to the Kezuroukai competitions to win the award and show everyone they've been using unnecessarily finicky tools that were developed before resources were plentiful?
How wide is the shaving at the Kezuroukai competition? Are any infill planes that wide?
The following of traditions is another way of saying, "this is the way we have always done it." This is an attitude not much liked by me, but it is respected when it is appropriate.
Traditions do have value. In the western world there used to be apprenticeships. Young woodworkers learned to make some of their own equipment. Now many woodworkers protest, "I don't have the time" to make something so they buy it instead.
Making a mallet, miter box or marking knife teaches skills. Making one's own plane body also taught skills. Even buying one someone else made the blade hade to be fitted.
The social structure in Japan was quite different than that of the U.S. and Europe. A metal body plane likely was financially out of reach to most people wanting to work with wood. Also the weight of carrying a few to a job site was a hinderance.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." No clue who said that, but some thing I try to apply to everything I do.
On Efficiency.png
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
Bill Gates is often credited for this but it actually came from Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. who watched bricklayers and noticed the lazy ones could do more work without wearing themselves out.
jtk
-- I love reading quotes from all the great, intelligent people who preceded us.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)