There's a lot in favour of glass gliders. The 15m unflapped ones are generally simple to rig, a lot of them are self-connecting, they are nearly all very easy to fly, with suitable covers they can live out in the summer (so less chance of damaging you or the glider rigging) and you can fly XC on days when a lot of wood simply falls out of the sky. They are often more comfortable than wood as well. I'd say the advantages of wood are that landing speeds are usually slower, so you can fit in a smaller field, and you can manage height gains when glass is struggling for lift. And most of them are pretty cheap gliders.
Of course some people will fail to do their 50k in a glass glider, but many of them will manage it (and quite possibly manage flying back as well now that landing out at the end isn't de rigeur) on a day when wood wouldn't want to be out of glide range of base.
And there are lots and lots of really good glass gliders for well under £80k!