The principal reason to use aftermarket aluminum hubs, baskets and plates is to reduce rotating mass, but steel parts are more durable and more impact resistant than aluminum, so at least one manufacturer offers a lightened steel basket as a replacement for the stock unit.
As dry clutches wear they get noisier because, every time you shift, the friction plate tabs hammer the clutch basket fingers causing the clearances between the plates and the basket to increase. The plates deform by mushrooming, the basket deforms by notching. There's very little noise until the clearances open up and the plates begin to rattle. Once this happens, it's questionable whether aluminum or steel plates are quieter.
If you mix materials such as using steel plates with an aluminum basket, the harder steel plates will notch the softer metal basket tabs more quickly, and to a deeper depth, than if a matching steel basket were used. If you use aluminum plates with a steel basket, then it's the softer plate tabs that get hammered into mushroom shapes by the harder steel basket. So the whole idea is to use the same material for plates and basket to minimize this deformation - use aluminum plates if you use an aluminum basket.
One manufacturer (STM) has tried to overcome this problem by increasing the number of tabs on each plate (and the number of basket fingers) from the stock 12 to 48 tabs. The intended effect being to distribute the engine torque load over four times the stock tab-basket area so as to reduce the impact-induced notching to the clutch basket tabs and mushrooming of the plate's tabs.
Others like Nichols Manufacturing sell an CNC-machined aluminum basket and Barnett clutch pack together where extra care has been taken to initially minimize these clearances for longer clutch life and a quieter clutch. They claim that this results in the tabs initially engaging 90% of the basket area instead of around 55% for a stock clutch with normal clearances.
Notches in a 12-Finger Clutch Basket