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I agree with you. But also, to be fair, I'm pretty sure in that time phone bodies have transitioned from mostly plastic to mostly metal? I'm sure that has something to do with the weight, and I would guess that the metal shell is probably thicker too?

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Why should they be thicker? Metals are resilient and strong. That's why we use them to build all sorts of stuff. I expect metal bodies to be thinner not thicker.

I would imagine that thin plastic is more resistant to permanent deformation than thin metal. Or, in other words, when then metal bends, it tends to stay bent. Thin plastic can more easily bend, but then restore to its original shape.

But I'm not a materials engineer. This is just in my lay experience of how thin materials I've encountered perform.

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