I guess I'm still failing to miss the point. From my cooking experience, a simmer is still a simmer and a sear is still a sear. It doesn't matter what vessel you're using whether it's a clay pot, stainless steel, copper, cast iron, anodized aluminum, etc.
I was cooking a very large pot of spaghetti sauce the other day in a hard anodized aluminum pot. I am able to get my gas cooktop to cook with an even lower flame than its lowest simmer setting by actually turning my knob all the way past high to almost off. That was the only way I could get that pot to simmer rather than do a slow boil for the 4 hours I was cooking the sauce. I don't see that your experiment validates anything except cooking can be done at low heat. I like cast iron as much as the next guy, but I don't believe it has any special "low heat cooking" properties. Once water gets to boiling at 212° F it never gets hotter. You can boil it faster, but the temperature never changes. The only way to increase the temp is to increase the pressure. Hence, pressure cookers.