Another aspect of the whole, 'not wanting to lend it out' bit is that this is easily the most expensive weapon I've ever made- what with the bandshoppe pole and the Kegg foam from Edhellen, this thing was about 40$ in materials, not to mention the time, patience, etc. So **** it- if anyone's going to ram my Mercedes into a dozen trees, its going to be me!
Not calling anyone out, but I'm sure all of us know a few people who are absolute fun cancer on the field as soon as they pick up a red weapon, regardless of the quality of the weapon itself. I've heard of realms even restricting fighters from using reds 'until further notice' for doing things that are dangerous even with the best made weapons (baseball swinging to the back of a lady archer's unprotected knee, for instance).
As such, while I agree the 'only I am skillful enough to use this weapon to the degree that its blatant safety flaws aren't an issue' argument is worthy of contempt, the opposite statement ('well, I'm afraid of an idiot swinging with the striking surface and hitting with the handle, so I'm failing it'*) is pretty lame as well.
* don't laugh, I've seen weapon checkers fail every single quarterstaff that came their way for that very reason.