I am growing a Winecrisp tree and have fruited it for a number of years. My tree is a dwarf on G16. General disease resistance is good especially to scab. This year the crop was very good- it’s a juicy sweet tart apple. They are good to excellent most years. My tree has good growth and vigor is not a problem.
I don’t find Winecrisp apples prone to cracking in my climate (central Illinois) even with heavy rains. Although maybe you are talking of cracking on the trees themselves? I haven’t observed any cracking on the trunk or branches. Or maybe the person you talked to was referring to the exfoliating bark that is commonly found on Geneva rootstocks near the graft union.
Also Winecrisp gets burr knots on the scion. So if you wanted a tree on it’s own roots I think it would be easy to do that with Winecrisp. Here is a thread that has discussion about the burr knots and some pictures of the burr knots on the Winecrisp scion of my tree .