Agreed. These are also the reasons that Taylor uses the "brown sugar" stain on their new maple guitars, so it looks dark brown like rosewood or mahogany. Traditionalists, we guitar players are.
I first got interested in CF when living in Alaska. It was all I could do to keep the indoor RH up to 20% during the winters. All the wood guitars had to live in their cases, and sponges got re-wet every Monday morning. I looked at the Ovation Adamas (too rich for my budget then) and finally the Rainsong when they came along. My LGS up there had one of the original uni-directional topped Maui-built Rainsong's at $3500 (also too rich for my budget at the same price as the Adama) and they sat on both guitars for years until they finally sold. But we made a side trip to Elderly on a family visit back to Michigan and had them ship a WS-1000 to Anchorage after extensive test playing in the store.
Back on topic, I would be interested in experiencing carbon fiber tuning machines, and see how they would be great for a twelve string, but have some doubts about their durability. CF is very strong, but I don't think it has the surface hardness necessary to avoid rapid wear of meshing gear faces. They might end up with a hybrid design with CF used almost everywhere -- except brass worm and pinion gears. It would still save considerable weight.
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