A problem as I see it with replacing the existing plastic strips with a harder material such as, for example stainless steel, is that now you will have transferred the wear down from the strips, a relatively low cost item to replace, to the sliding hatch which would cost a lot more.
As for removing the cover that forms the hatch garage, it appears to me that it would involve removal of the main sheet traveller system, and I'm guessing that it's bolted through to an aluminium plate embedded in the underside of the cabin roof. As those bolts will be made of stainless steel, it's most likely that some form of galvanic corrosion will have occurred resulting the ends of the bolts having become frozen into the aluminium. Removing the bolts in such situation will be difficult and could result in the bolts breaking and leaving the ends still frozen into the aluminium. If they should happen to come out easily, that would be extremely fortunate, but do remember to cover the ends of the bolts before they go back in with Duralac to prevent such corrosion from taking place in the future. I did look at removing the traveller system last year, but the bolts I have referred to showed no intention of cooperating, so I left it alone and had a re-think about the intended work (installing an electric cable) and came up with an alternative.
On my boat those plastic strips have transverse cracks in them in way of several of the screw holes, but inspite of that, the strips remain securely in place and my intention is simply to leave them alone.
