I've never found the melamine coated particle board to be hard to work with. It is very sturdy at 3/4" and if you predrill your holes, it works just fine(drill the screws in slow though as they can strip the wood). I built a rat cabinet cage out of it, measurements are 3ftx2ftx4ft with levels and whatnot, and it's been over 2 years, and the cage still looks like it was just built(well.. except for the wee...).

This is what I plan on building my rack out of and hopefully it goes just as well.