I concur.

When I built my reloading bench, I designed it so that a 2x6 formed the cross-member across the front of the bench. I covered this with a 31/64 inch piece of wafer board. The mounting holes go through the wafer board, but it is the 2x6 that carries essentially all the stress, not the thin membrane at the top; which is there mostly to ensure things don't fall onto the floor below. You need the grain structure of real wood or the crystalline structure of a metal section to carry the stresses of using the press, not a material pressed out of sawdust.