Material selection is highly important in order to serve the function required and for optimal appearance. For example, I used to take great trouble to select wood for table tops. I would spend a lot of time laying out pieces side by side in order to orient the boards for best appearance and best grain match. Shuffling the order of the boards, flipping them end for end and top to bottom, getting them arranged just so. Then I would come back a day or two later and see if I liked the way it looked. FInally, I would perform the glue-up and then process the top for finishing. The thing is, my methods back in the day were built around the tools I used and one important tool was my random orbit sander. I loved that tool as it helped overcome many issues with the wood and get a nice finish as I sanded through the grits from 80 to 120 to 150 to 180 to sometimes 220. Now as I do more hand tool work with planes I realize that I needed to also consider the direction that worked best for planing and to account for this in my lay up because this is what makes the planing process way simpler. Having eh grain all oriented in the same direction basically eliminates tear-out potential and therefore makes the entire planing process so much simpler. Of course, even with optimal grain matching you sometimes still can get tear-out, but accounting for the grain direction and planing with the grain and not against it makes planing so much more satisfying and less stressful.