Jim,
It seems the grass is always greener... Not long ago, I was wishing I had some close grained fir to use for the desk. I find clear, straight grained fir here quite a bit more expensive and harder to find than SYP.
I remember when I was in high school, we had an old barn on the our farm that was in too bad condition to save, but it had lots of fir and cotton wood beams. I never thought of cotton wood as being a "hard" wood, but I remember when I worked with some of those old beams they were like rock.