Here's the deal. Coated carbide on synthetics sucks. Reason is the coating needs a small radius to adhere to on the cutting surface. This means the edge isn't as sharp as a non coated. Works fine in steels and alloys. Rubs resin to melting point in synthetics. Then it heats/cools/heats/cools and this causes thermal cracking. Tool goes to shit. This information came to me directly from the tooling vendor. The solution is non coated carbide.
zillion? Ok, maybe not a zillion. More like a shit load. Working at Dakota Arms/Nesika gave me a great deal of wood to chew through. Plus our own stuff over the last five years.
Wood is kind of a double wammy. The burl, fiddle, crotch that we all love is largely composed of minerals. Minerals deposited in the wood suspended in the sap as the tree grew. The stuff is abrasive and this wears out tooling. Still, if the tool is sharp, of the proper geometry (think endmills made for AL), and the speeds/feeds are dialed in, you'll get very good tool life.
Hope this helps and sorry if my previous comment sounded curt.
C.