Patrick Saddlery - The art of manufacturing your saddle 

Same

There the stirrup hangers, those are a bit fancier then normal, you can adjust the place where you hang your stirrups from, western saddle trees, some have a groove for them or a slot, English saddles hang slightly more forward than western saddles, saddleseat saddles, reining saddles and Australian stock saddles hang more forward so that you sit deeper in the seat and polo crosse saddles, saddlers and polo crosse saddles usually 2 positions where you hang the stirrups from.

Because if you take care of them they last forever. Most of the sidesaddles being shown in today are Pre WWII and made of wood and steel. Synthetics are relatively new, If I pay top dollar for something I want it to last.

They give more room to craft the saddle for the horse and the seat for the rider seperately so that the horse can have a wide shape in the saddle while a lot of riders like a narrow shape in the waist of the saddle. This is to my knowledge not possible with molded plastic trees since you don't work with the nylon bands that you see in the beginning of the process, but you go directly to the foaming in the seat

Wood trees are still some of the best options today even in the Western world, is way stronger then fiberglass, and fiberglass is the weakest type of tree you can get, the first time you rope or pull something heavy with a fiberglass tree it will break, polyurethane trees are also very good trees, but most trees are rawhide covered wood or rawhide covered polyurethane reinforced with steel and wood on both types and have been used for the last few hundred years, , if Im gonna pay +- $1400 or more roping saddle wade or normal style, Im gonna expect that saddle to be able to handle some of the biggest steers and can ride with it for atleast 20 years.