We tried Formlabs, of course. We could print fingers like these, but none of the materials we tried (about 10 different options) survived more than 1000 cycles.

As I said, Carbon3d underappreciated, because everyone think "it's just a more expensive Formlabs", while in fact Carbon3d is all about production-grade materials.

If it was possible to take materials from Carbon3d and then print on Formlabs, that would be a very good combo.

I believe the big difference is that the Carbon printers use a special bottom plate that lets air molecules passing through. That's why they can use chemical reactions to create better material properties. This also means the print doesn't stick to the bottom plate and they can print faster.

Agreed - not just materials either, Carbon printers are fast and for mass production. Making shoes via form printers at scale is not viable (form is nice for prototyping though and small scale stuff).