The sheet metal is thin but more than capable of doing the job. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get ALL the coal in the starter hot and glowing for me, but I find it's somewhat dependent on how densely the coals are packed and how much tinder you use to get the fire going. It certainly takes less effort than before. Once you've poured the hot coals onto your grill, add more coal as needed depending on how much you are cooking. From my experience, heating up one batch of coal from the coal starter was more than enough to cook a meal for a family of 4.
When I purchased this it was around $10 and was roughly half the price of similar products from brand name manufacturers.
The metal does discolour (mine did after first use) but does not seem to affect usability.