Been away for a bit, wrecked my motorcycle and am home recovering
arch: I thought about the offset thing too and I am convinced that Kyosho did it the right way. All dNano wheels are the same offset. So you can use different wheels on various cars and just change out the hubs. If you add offset to the wheels, then you make the wheels car specific and also add a ton to the machining complexity.
marcro: Scale is nice but heavy, longer time to machine, and specific to a given car. From a business standpoint, it is a non-starter. Heck even doing a given style in multiple diameters is very costly for short production runs. Personally, I am all about performance and good looks at same time. The first wheels we did "feel" same weight as plastic. No way are any of the other aluminum wheels I have seen even close. Light wheels are one of the biggest performance hopups you can get as it affects unsprung weight AND rotating mass of drivetrain.
lorne: extending the wheel lip would relly do nothing to help keep junk out of kingpins/bearings. Trust me after over 30 years in racing r/c I can safely say debris will find it's way in where you don't want it no matter what. The solution is stay on top of cleaning and maintenance and/or get a cleaner racing surface.
I have not given up on this project and other designs I am working on. I have scrapped the guy I was getting quotes from so I am trying a couple others and hopefully I can find reasonable pricing.