@daizee, can you expand on that?
I went through a long period of coveting the newer, sexier cast iron. To an extent, i still do. There is no doubt; they have more precise and refined manufacturing.
Indeed!
I find the Lodge stuff absurdly heavy per unit of cooking area. I don't need the physical mass of an engine block in a pan, and I generally find all that thermal mass aggravating as well.
Cast iron pans in general are heavier than their steel (and other) counterparts, so it's not like the Stargazer or vintage Griswold are "thin" or "light" - that's only in comparison to the unfinished Lodge products.
Cheap cast iron is cast.... and shipped. It's simply unfinished, IMO. Vintage stuff was cast with enough extra mass to tolerate being ground smooth, after which it was a reasonable mass. Stargazer duplicates this engineering process. Cast, grind, season, ship.
Lodge and Wagner patterns pulled off of old Griswold molds are SHAPED similar to their parent patterns, but the more expensive labor of finishing the product simply isn't done. The result is a pebbly finish that can never be scraped clean. You don't need a gravel driveway in the bottom of your pan to hold seasoning. That said, a mirror finish is probably the other extreme to be avoided as well.
Steel pans are usually made from sheet metal/steel which has been 'forged' through a hot rolling mill, and starts out smooth. The pressing/stamping process only further refines the surface, so extensive final finishing isn't necessary. However you CAN see finishing marks in many stamped pans. They probably cost more... Cheap ones may cover the rough finish with a coating or enamel. Even expensive brands like Le Creuset do this. And that's not a dig - they're solving the problem in a sensible way! They've decided to solve the finishing problem with an enameling process instead of a grinding process. Point is that there's a finishing step involved.
I think the value in cast iron is the moderate mass, unibody construction (so to speak), thermal conductivity (vs. stainless for sure) and how well it takes seasoning. It won't warp as easily as stamped steel, so it's probably a better grill or campfire choice, but I don't actually do those things and maybe someone else can comment.
A buddy of mine who knows cast iron (and can cook!) does love his smooth cast iron, and has even ground one or two. When an abrasives pro (pipefitter, knifemaker) says it's not worth the effort to post-process it, that should give an idea of the cost of labor/process involved to finish a pan properly. He bought a new carbon steel pan and loves it TOO.
I live in New England and we have a lively flea market scene. Over the years I collected ~10 pieces of usable vintage Griswold at reasonable prices in RI and CT. Kept 7 (across two kitchens), gave away the rest to friends. But the prices got so high that buying new production equipment that is properly finished finally made sense.
Re: costs
I'm in the USA, and Stargazer is in the USA, and I ordered during the Veteran's day sale during a pandemic when people were struggling to stay in business. I feel pretty good about spending stimulus funds that way. But make no mistake, a lot of the price is USA labor cost, not merely "betterness", though their design and execution IS high end, IMO.
It's nice when you don't have to do a bunch of dirty cleanup work to get the thing into service. I'd rather be making knives than cleaning (or grinding) cast iron.