Not that weight is necessarily the final determination of strength, but if that is truly important I'm not sure you are comparing apples to apples here, or what he was interested in. Note that the medium duty (which is what he asked about) Woods rake weighs in at 324 lbs. The York RW - 7' at 271 lbs.
If you move up to the heavy duty rakes, the York RI is 467 lbs while the Woods 405, and only at this heavy-duty level does York seem to do much to increase the beam strength.
Don't get me wrong, York makes an excellent product but they command a premium price (as does Woods to a lesser degree) but the main beam in most of the York units just seems as if it could have been beefier. I think thats why you occasionally see some of their older units bent up a little, in addition to the fact that they're otherwise build really sound and have been in use forever!
