You always hear people talk about old cast iron vs. new cast iron: the old stuff is lighter, smoother, and generally better, while the new stuff is heavy, pebbled, and generally a poor imitation of what cast iron ought to be.
So fans of cast iron go to great lengths to find the old stuff, pay good money for it, and look down on Lodge Logic and similar pans.
So here's my question: why is this?
If we can make high-quality knives at a relatively affordable price, why can't we make cast iron pans as good as the old ones? We're not exactly talking about Damascus steel.
Best Answer
I'd say that it's not that we can't make cast iron pans as good as the old ones. It's that for most companies that's not where the money is. A company doesn't make money by making super high quality cast iron ("like the old stuff") that costs $100-200 per pan and selling them to a few cast iron enthusiasts (those prices are random, I don't actually know how much those would cost if they were made, but it would be a lot more than the current price). They make money by selling $15-30 cast iron cookware to loads and loads of consumers. Back in the day when manufacturing wasn't as automated and people were involved in the process at a lot of steps, it didn't add much incremental cost to also sandblast and polish the surfaces, yielding the super-smooth surfaces that you used to see. Now, when lots of the manufacturing process is automated, adding in the additional time adds significantly to the cost of the product percentage wise.
So, could we do it? Yeah, sure. But big companies won't. I just suggest making your own :)
As a side comment, newer cast iron isn't as nice as the old stuff for a number of reasons, but I use the newer style cast iron all the time (my mom has not yet bequeathed me her old cast iron pans) and it works great. Not as non-stick, heavier, and so forth, but still excellent for cooking.