CStan
IMO, it is largely the 'premium plane movement' that relegated the cap iron effect to almost lost lore. Fine performance in a plane had to be attributed to some other set of factors, e.g. 'mass,' frog pitch, quality of machining, historicity, amount of money spent,' etc. -- anything but a reasonably well set up mass produced plane with an effective cap iron, since this could be had for twenty bucks used and maybe an afternoon's worth of elbow grease. How quaint and pedestrian.

If somebody can't afford, or doesn't want to afford, shelling out several hundred dollars per plane, or silliness to beat all silliness, shelling out several hundred dollars AND get put on a several week if not several month bloody, damned 'waiting list' then that individual simply is not serious about their craftsmanship.