People tend to treat wood like it'll explode if it's not 100% perfect. That's not the case. I had some nice custom handles made for some Italian axes I carry, and to balance those particular heads in the hand, the handles need to be shaped a lot like adze handles. Because of that strong curve, having vertical continuous grain through the neck is extra important compared to on most handles. When the handles arrived, some were off-spec and had horizontal or sloping grain that led to bad runout, but the base quality of the wood was high, and I decided to test the worst one to the point of failure just to see what it could take. Mounting a sledge hammer head to the handle and making deliberate overstrikes into the edge of a log face, it took me 42 deliberate overstrikes before breaking the handle. I probably could have gotten years of service out of it if used as intended. In terms of chasing the ideal, though, it's certainly better to have a handle closer to perfect when selecting one in person since the price for a "good" vs "bad" one are the same.