Besides fishing, a lot of recreation out on the coast is pulling shrimp and crab pots, and beaching in remote and interesting places. Aluminum takes away the pain and shame of knocking gelcoat off of fiberglass, although judging from the paint and graphics and sharkhide offered by tin boat makers (and therefore demanded by customers), most owners of new tin boats are possessed of an OCD need to keep their new toys immaculate. Whatever.
It is enlightening to consider the pedigree of tin boats marketed for ocean use. Hewes along with basically all of the other guys who started out by making river boats, are still stuck on using extrusions for various hull structural features, and plywood for decks. Cue the birds: cheap, cheap cheapcheapcheap... North River bought out Almar, who brought a couple decades of government-contracted offshore saltwater boat construction to the table, and NR now arguably sets the standard for offshore aluminum boats.
There are many other outfits on the coast making semi-custom and custom aluminum saltwater boats: you'll find them all over the pacific NW and BC. Most or all of them are focused on saltwater, and as such you don't see extrusions or 6061 shapes on the hull or in the bilge; rather you see lots of welded and bent marine-grade 50XX plate. Compare these against the WA/OR/ID riverboat builders, look under the hood a bit, and you will see a difference in quality.
I owned an 26' hewes and currently own a 28' almar; there is no comparing the two from a seakeeping and construction standpoint, but for most uses the hewes is good enough. The almar is a battleship in big water.
For a tin boat, new/shiny/cheap counts a lot less than quality with good wiring and newer 4-stroke outboard power. Keep your eyes open, get a ragged out 24' almar sounder with a big block inboard jet (there was one on craigslist nearly all of last summer located in Michigan, that kept dropping in price until it was listed at about $15k), pull and sell the engine and jet drive, have a local fabricator fill the jet hole and build a hull extension outboard bracket between the trim tabs, mount a new 250 honda, redo the wiring and equip with radar/sounder/plotter/vhf of choice, and go kill fish, for 1/2 what you'd pay for a new 24' hewes.
