Ages ago, a fine cabinet-maker I used to hang out with (he was my great aunt's bridge partner's husband) told me, "End grain is like a belly button, you know everyone has one, but unless it's someone special, you don't want to see it." --- agree that bamboo does change that calculus a bit, and I've always wondered what he would have thought of a bamboo box with cigarette and lighter and ash tray integrated into it which was made of short little segments of bamboo glued together (but never remembered to arrange for him to see it).