Possibly the propeller blades were left bent because of the impossibility of straightening them; better to have original bent blades than replace them with straight or dummy blades?

It goes back to the old argument of what we are ‘preserving’; an actual historically significant aircraft with a notable combat record or a collection of replacement material with a few original components?

Personally I like to see the airframe of R for Robert without it being covered in new fabric; I like to see the corrosion evidence of decades underwater. If the whole airframe was covered in new fabric people would be saying (quite wrongly) how easily it could have been made airworthy and asking why it wasn’t done?