The Pauter rod design looks pretty simple. It has a fairly large radius on the heavy side, almost no 90° joints, is wide where it needs to be, and just from the picture it looks like the heat treating would be very even leaving a nice grain structure. The only downside I see is possibly the weight. =/

The reason I don't like H-beams is that they are very intricate and I think if they were thrown together quickly and weren't done right they could be shitty.

Whats wrong with a custom billet rod?