A small-ish point: While the glass Apple chose does have issues with very hard impacts (the stuff that lead to catastrophic failure), it has really impressive

A small-ish point: While the glass Apple chose does have issues with very hard impacts (the stuff that lead to catastrophic failure), it has really impressive resilience to minor wear and tear. It's difficult to scratch with metals and doesn't chip or dent. Yes, sand/silicates will scratch it, but not softer materials. Further, ceramics and glass have excellent RF transparency, especially relative to metals. As you can imagine, this is incredibly important in smartphones. This has been a pretty big design challenge for Apple in the past: the Titanium Powerbooks has horrendous wireless performance, and generations of iPads and iPod touches have had to have glass or plastic windows in their backs. The iPhone 5 has two glass windows in the back for this reason. Note that stainless steel has poorer transparency than Al, and some types are ferromagnetic. I definitely like the polycarb that Nokia is using in the Lumia line. That said, the feel that Apple has created by its material choices in the iPhone line is very nice, and that this complaint over scuffing is minor. Wear and tear happens, whether to plastic or steel.