For me I use the best leather quality for the item I am making. I do and will continue to use seconds for a lot of projects reason is it gives the items being made a greater character than a perfect piece of leather, it also shows that the leather is real and not some man made genuine leather product. One thing I have discovered is a lot more chemicals are being used in the "Veg tanning" process when I started in the early 70's almost all the leather we used then was naturally tanned using plant extracts or were brain tanned (think chemicals are stinky try brain tanning a deer or elk hide) for a soft garment leather.