I am sitting here today with snow up to my butt and too much time, which led me to some drawers full of crap I was going to sort through last winter (and didn't). First off was the drawer of 1911 grips. I have a lot of 1911 grips. Wood grips, G10 grips, Micarta grips, more wood grips, even more wood grips, etc, etc. The only thing I don't have is rubber grips, because I gave those away a couple years ago.
I dropped a bit of coin on the current G10 grips, and about the only "benefit" of them I can now detect is that they have rubbed more bluing off the frame than the micarta grips did, which themselves rubbed away more finish than the wood grips... (which wore away nothing).
So here I am with a hell of a lot of checkered, double-diamond, regular thickness grip panels, basically all alike save for the material they are made of. And try as I might, I can't say any particular set made me shoot better or has been any functional improvement over another.
I have always had a problem ending up with too many holsters as I look for a holy grail, now I believe I have done the same with 1911 grip panels. Anyone else have a pile of "just had to get these" 1911 grip panels that ended up doing nothing better than the ones that came on the gun? I mean, aside from not desecrating the landscape aesthetically.*
*Like a bringback 1911 with old plexiglas grips having a picture of the owner's wife circa 1944/45. Great testament to true love, longing, etc, but kinda garish.