After growing annoyed at the accumulation of worn out ‘modern style’ office chairs accumulating in my house, I decided to take one apart to replace the padding. Doing so, I found the seat base is a cracked piece of bent plywood of very low quality. The chair back and base are fine so I plan to just replace the seat. I’m pondering whether to:
a) replace with slightly better plywood from the big box store (and need to learn how to bend it), or
b) buy a scorp and possibly other required tools and then dig out a rounded concave base in poplar (like on a windsor chair).

Both versions would then be upholstered with some sort of high density foam, not sure if this needs to be carved in some way.

I’ve not done either technique before but bending plywood seems the faster route if I can find usable stock and learn to bend it. Would digging out the chair bottom make a more comfortable chair or is that a waste of time since it will be covered in foam?