The idea that ArmaSteel was only good for a stop-gap is interesting, but false. Face it, you have a LOT of need for weapons immediately. Your factories are just beginning to hit the projected production quotas, and you want to retool for different production necessity's? Not going to happen. Same idea during the Korean Conflict. Why change the tried and true methodology when you need things NOW. It wasn't like anyone expected Korea so soon after WWII.
Remember, a man named Robinson developed a recoiless pattern weapons family during WWII. It allowed a single person to rest a .50 BMG weapon on his shoulder, and fire it full-auto. He also developed rifles and pistols that operated in the same method. You'd think that such an advancement would have been welcomed with open arms. Not happening. The Allies were producing, and using, so many of the existing pattern weapons that they didn't want to re-tool service -wide. After the War, there were so many existing supplies of spares that they weren't interested in the change, either. Sixty years later, the Russians have utilized a modification of his work in their latest small-arms.
Superior, or better, is a funny thing. Would you call a student who receives a failing grade in everything but gym "superior" to a student who receives "A" grades in everything BUT gym, in which he receives a "B+"?
Think about it. Forgings, properly done, are the strongest way to create a form. Investment technology can approach same size strengths of 92%. BUT, castings require less machining, less resource waste, less machining means less time and power consumed. So, forging has only ONE "advantage", that it's the strongest per inch product. When this is applied to long-guns, it's results are that, on a 2" wide piece, a comparable casting would be a little over 1/8" thicker.
I think that this entire discussion has more to do with preference than performance.GI6