Nah the design on Thomson Elite is awesome. The way the clamp method to the steerer tube is flush is great. Also, the clamp area to the actual bars is wider than a lot of stems, which makes it atleast look a lot stronger. It's a MTB stem, so you know it's going to be damn strong too. Also, it's not too heavy. It's machined out of a single piece of 7000-series aluminum, and you can just tell the quality.