Well upon further investigation and research into this problem, I decided to take matters into my own hands, less I start replacing gears all the time. The stock gear is actually STEEL based,HPI #86097. However, it is NOT hardened steel, which would explain why it wore out so fast. http://www.hpiracing.com/products/en/86097/
I checked it out further and you definetely don't want the aluminum gear set from HPI #86136, it'll be worse! http://www.hpiracing.com/products/en/86136/ So my original theory was wrong, the STOCK Savage drive gear is standard STEEL, not hardened STEEL or ALUMINUM.

Lucky for me, my LHS has a replacement 86097 steel drive gear handy so I purchased it along with some HPI Heavy duty grease #Z168 and went about to grease the entire center diff and im gonna see how much that helps my gear wear out. http://www.hpiracing.com/products/en/Z168/

Hopefully someone soon will come out with a HARDENED STEEL version of the drive gear.