The grater has a surprising amount of heft that's concentrated in the handle. The grating surface does not feel flimsy, although I did notice some deflection if you press hard enough on it. The amount of deflection seems reasonable and normal. The grater is very rigid. The grating surface is separate from the handle, but it's held in place by several small tabs on the reverse side -- it's not going anywhere. The reverse side of the grating surface is clean and doesn't provide any place for grated cheese to get stuck. The handle's material is the same type of rubber found on other OXO products, and I found the diameter of the handle to fit my hand perfectly.

The grating surface consists of what look like little tubes that run parallel to the handle. This has two benefits. The first is that you grate on both the downstroke and the upstroke. It's really amazing how much quicker I can grate now and how much cheese comes out. The second benefit is that it's really easy to clean this grater: just wipe across the grating surface (i.e.: across, not up and down). No grated sponge!

The end of the grater is rubber for traction when resting the end of the grater on a plate, but I had no problem with just holding the grater over the plate. The cheese fell in a predictable pattern -- over my pasta and not all over the table, even with some vigorous grating.

Yes, this is an expensive grater. But if you're like me and appreciate well-made, quality tools, this is one you should add to your kitchen. It does one job, does it well, and is easy to clean up afterwards. That last part is key, because I hate cleaning up. With this grater I can just rinse it off, hang it up, and forget about it until next time.