"Knowing what we do about traditional SOF boats and their built in flex, I often wonder if strip boats are not too stiff.

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I just came to the conclusion that the strippers we build, have all the stiffness they will ever need (wish I could say the same for myself.) In the past I have drawn pretty heavily on my knowledge of racing sailboat construction. However racing sailboats need all the stiffness you can extract from engineering, material science, and construction methods in order to have the rig behave in a predictable manner as it is adjusted during racing conditions. Impact resistance, while nice, is secondary. If you put the thing on the rocks, you get a new boat.

Kayaks just do not need to be that stiff. We have no masts, shrouds, forestay, or centerboard trunk. Yet we are frequently clunking around rocks, dropping them heavily onto curbs, and occasionally flinging them lovingly from rooftop racks. Impact resistance is far more important to us than stiffness.

You are right about the deflection. I still have that Valley cluttering up my shop, and it deflects quite a bit, particularly in the hull near the cockpit. None of my strippers do that. Interesting design principle: if you make the boat too heavy to pick up, you can't drop it on anything sharp.