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Are you certain that Stetson you reference is actually beaver fur? That word (beaver) gets tossed around so much in the hat industry that unless it is explicitly stated that a particular hat body contains a specific percentage of actual beaver fur, I'd wager that in reality it contains very little if any at all.
My guess is you have indeed handled rabbit fur, as that's what most fur felt hats are made of -- mostly if not entirely rabbit (or hare, in some cases). But then, there's rabbit (and hare), and then there's rabbit. Some are far nicer than others. Million upon millions of very, very nice hats have been made from it, and millions and millions of lesser hats have as well. The starting material is very important, of course, but there's a slew of little and not so little things along the road to a finished product that make for a better or lesser hat. Consider Akubra hats, as an example. Lots of our contemporaries here appreciate them for their styles and overall value for the money, but the "hand" is nothing to get excited about. Indeed, they're more than a bit on the rough side, or so my limited experience with them would indicate. Some guys here address that by giving them a good aftermarket pouncing (sandpapering).
Among the advantages of beaver is that it can yield a much nicer finish than can generally be gotten out of a "staple" (rabbit) hat body. That's more important to some people than others, of course, but in a side-by-side comparison, with all other factors being as equal as they reasonably can be, the difference is obvious.
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