Not the first time I've heard that, that's for sure. Generally spurs me on.
Wrong. double the thickness of a solid and you increase it's strength times 4.
Loose example, a sheet with 50% hole area, twice as thick, is the same weight (duh), but is 1.5 times the strength in FEA. It also importantly has a much higher buckling strength, a critical factor.
Literaly thousands of combinations of material grades and hole shapes and sizes available straight off the shelf.
Funny, once you think of it, then how many times you see it being used daily. The seats at a building I was in 2 days ago were all made from tube and perforated sheet for example.