I get what you're saying, but I honestly see it differently. The flour in my area can vary a lot in how much it weighs depending on how humid it is, so a cup of flour one week might be way off the next. A scale just takes that guesswork out and makes sure I get the same result every time, which matters when I'm trying to nail a specific crumb or crust. Your dad's bread probably works because he's been at it long enough to adjust by feel, but for most of us normal people a scale keeps things consistent.

That butterknife trick is too useful to give up though.

47 minutes of dead silence and pure eye contact is brutal to learn from.

idk I've seen that happen with bad glue jobs before.

And that matches what I've noticed too - my oven-seasoned skillet looked perfect out of the gate, but after a few rounds of bacon and eggs, the stovetop one actually felt slicker and more nonstick. I think the high heat in the oven can make the oil polymerize too fast, which looks nice but doesn't bond as tight to the metal compared to the slower stovetop buildup. So yeah, oven for looks, stovetop for actual cooking performance seems to be the real split here.