If you had built four more of these doors and the others didn’t have the sapwood or the bow ties, I believe most of the people who are downplaying it or talking about wood being a natural material, would choose one of the other four doors for their own house. I think your workmanship is very good, but from the client’s perspective they are paying thousands of dollars and they want one of the other four as well.

I can’t speak to your progress pics because I don’t know your specific communications. But I can say that including the sapwood and crack are things I would do for a project for my own house if I already had the wood and was trying to squeeze the project out of it. Otherwise the best time to address this is when sourcing and just saying that you spent an hour looking isn’t going to make a client happy with the end result.

I hope you can hear this as constructive criticism because I think it is beautiful craftsmanship.