I think half the issue is the companies that are selling grips en masse are buying them in as cheap as possible with no actual care for the quality (most of the public wouldn't know the difference unfortunately) - if you order enough I've never had an issue specifying grip weights/thicknesses from overseas though. As for UK made grips, it's the whole 'UK made automatically makes something better than made overseas' argument again... rubber is rubber...
I've just got a chevron from get padded up.its described as a chevron lite and it is mighty thin.
The only advantage is they hardly add any weight to the bat, it's a tiny amount.
Yeah I ordered a few of those a while back for a friend who specifically wanted chevron, stupidly thin - can imagine you'd be changing it within a few weeks.