The aluminum as material is crap, but it's been experienced that way

Aluminium, as a pure element, is perhaps the worst material from which to make a structural element. Trust me. Aluminum is soft and reactive in a really pure state, which means it reacts well with the elements around it. Those who paid attention in school will remember a word like oxidation, those who didn't know rusting.

Aluminum turns out to be an amazing material the moment we mix it with other elements, or more correctly, alloy it. The secret of the process is to change the crystalline structure and fundamentally alter key properties such as strength of all types, hardness and greater chemical stability. The most well-known elements forming an alloy with aluminium are magnesium, copper and manganese. What results is known as duralumin (duralalloy, Aluminiumalloy)

Aluminum has gained an amazing position in the 20th century in the need to produce strong and lightweight structural elements. You can encounter it in the aerospace and automotive industries and in the construction of sports equipment. With this in mind, it could be called the carbon composites of the 20th century. It is certainly worth knowing that aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust

And why all this? Well, because it's certainly worth putting to rest the well-worn nonsense. As we don't label things as iron (an element) but steel, it's not out of place to have a bit of an idea of how things really are.