Well, yes, things tend to be done the way they are because they work that way. It doesn't mean there are not other ways to do the same thing. Some of those ways are better than the time honored tradition, some are worse, and most of them are better at some part of the task and worse at others. often times throughout history folks went off in their own direction and soon enough created entirely new industries simply because they thought they had a better idea for a widget.
I don't know if styrene will hold up over time as a track. I think it may be too soft, and will eventually cause problems. I can think of several such problems that are likely. on the other hand, perhaps these problems are an acceptable tradeoff for other benefits. I don't know. Maybe in six months or a year, Lucky_13 will report back on how the track is working out. Perhaps if interest in battery power grows we will see one of the manufacturers bring out an injection-molded plastic track system that can take the abuse of UV light and weather for outdoor use, and look fairly realistic in the process... and likely cost much less that traditional metal track.
From time to time in the corse of invention, someone tries something new, that seems like an odd choice to the specialists in a given field, but that opens up new doors to further progress that would not have been possible with the path of conventional wisdom. Folks fail as often, or perhaps more so than they succeed, but that is no reason not to let an idea run it's corse. Nothing is ever the best possible version of a thing that could ever exist. Someone will always find a way to improve it, or to make it more suitable for one part of it's task than a previous model.
JGL
The moment man first picked up a stone or a branch to use as a tool, he altered irrevocably the balance between him and his environment. From this point on, the way in which the world around him changed was different. It was no longer regular or predictable. New objects appeared that were not recognizable as a mutation of something that existed before, and as each one merged it altered the environment not for one season, but for ever.
— James Burke
from Introduction to Connections by James Burke, Macmillan (1978)
