People forget that straight grained wood cracks also. If well inlet and not abused with extreme loads even good looking wood dan last a lifetime. And if not just pick another nice blank and redo it again. Life is too short to hunt with an ugly dog or plain stock. You might put up with an ugly girlfriend if she has a good place to hunt it cleans fish and game well but not an ugly gun.
I agree that straight grained wood will sometimes crack but not nearly as often or as soon as fancy or poorly grained wood will.
Straight grain in the head & wrist doesn't mean unattractive as there are very pretty stock blanks out there that have proper grain layout through the head & wrist but you need to look a little harder & usually pay more for these blanks.
It seems to me that gunmakers formerly gave a lot more attention to proper grain layout in selecting stock blanks than they do currently. I suspect this is due to the decreased availability & high cost of really good wood & pressure from customers that want spectacular wood & don't really care about proper grain layout or even know what it should look like.
Don't take this as knocking Kem1988's stock. It's a very pretty blank & the layout looks reasonable from the limited view provided by the pictures. Personally, I would prefer traditional carved drop points but that is up to the individual.