It helps to recall how the Kydex holster came to be popular: Neale Perkins at Safariland saw how he could create a waterproof holster using the same equipment he used to make leather holsters; and Bill Rogers needed money so licensed his technology to Neale.
After that, at trade shows these new Safariland holsters w/b displayed in a fish tank filled with water, to demonstrate. But these were still susceptible to the hot interiors of squad cars. By then the gunleather industry had begun to fragment and lost interest in gunleather innovation; and Kydex took the crown.
I've designed and built heaps of Kydex holsters while I did consulting design for the industry all through the Nineties as Nichols Innovation. I like it. But it has become a burgeoning tech because it is as easy to get into the biz as becoming a housepainter or wallpaper hanger: have materials, will travel.
Now even Safariland has changed over to injection moulded nylon plastic, the patents having long since expired. Holsters don't exist for any of the reasons that gun writers say they do; they exist so that you don't have to leave your pistol behind on the kitchen bench. That's right, they're a portability device only, so use whatever material you LIKE because aside from their respective weaknesses -- don't go swimming with a leather holster, don't leave a Kydex holster in a hot car -- they're both great.
