I own 4 Hi-Point firearms (Compensated 9mm pistol, 40 S&W pistol, 9mm Carbine and the 40 S&W carbine). I do not think that they are junk, infact I have found them to be very reliable, accurate, durable and fun to shoot. I own many other more expensive guns as well but I seem to shoot the Hi Points more. I have between 4000-5000 rounds through both of the pistols and have had no real issues that would cause me to consider them junk. The only issues I have had and the complaint that I most hear is if you do not correctly load the clips they will have failure to feed issues. With a few easy tweaks to the clips and loaded correctly, all of my Hi Points will drain a clip quickly and accurately if I do my part. If you visit
www.hipointforums.com you can see that there is a large group of people on that forum that consider the Hi Points to be good value priced weapons. There is a guy on that site who looks to be a Glock buff and is a law enforcemant office and he gives the Hi Points his seal of approval. Hi Points are completely made in the USA and have a lifetime warranty. If you say that you will never own one because of what you have heard, then I would have to sat that you are missing out.
Back to your real original question. What material does it take to do the job? Would you buy diamond tipped nails to build your house with because they are harder? Or would the softer galvanized one do just fine for you as they work too? A tool head made out of potmetal? Sure I think it would work. How about a tool head carved out of a nice piece of billet? Probably would work too, but is it necessary? Would you want to pay extra for a billet tool head if you never really needed it? A handle or a lever on a press made out of potmetal? Probably wouldn't fair too well. Look at all of the Lee stuff that is made out of cast aluminum, those products always seem to serve their purpose well, or atleast I haven't had any issues with them.
Just my $.02
Now go get youself a Hi Point and have some fun....
JSF