I had the same feelings as you about the tracks, i also thought they were metal ones, but i had no issues with them breaking or some serious wear and i run on very hard garvel ground with lots of small rocks and i see minimal wear so far.
I actually asked a CNC guy over on a swedish board how much he wanted to make aluminium track plates for me, he said around $1200 for the compleate bits, if make them in stainless steel he said "double that price"!
Are you, Joe intrested in getting some metaltracks maybe i could talk to him again and see if hes up for the task?
Its alot of money but the coolness factor would go way up!