I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it again: wood vs concrete. . . concrete wins. We have kendama in our shop that are 5 years old and still playable most have chips in the base cup and much shorter kensaki than originally but the paint is still fine on many. There are Japanese schools with boxes of old heavily played kendama that are still pretty nice. . . but they aren't doing spacewalks over hard surfaces either. There's no magic wood just ones that may fit your play better.
Oddly enough, my Atlantic cherry after a good amount of play has absolutely no spike wear. It's not even glued as far as I can tell!
Yo KUSA is doing a flash sale right now and the red rabbit is available. Do you think these would come on standard cherry or would they be maple still?
I'm not sure how long the Rabbit was produced but it wouldn't surprise me that that they are. Sometimes these are called NOS (new old stock). Generally the "Year of" kendama are produced only for the year of that particular animal. The only recent exception of which I'm aware was the Year of the Dragon models that went on for several years because of popularity.
Had to cop one just to see. It was one of my all time favs so I might just retire my old one into my personal collection.