pizza: cast iron vs pizza steel, visually similar but Baking Steel wins crispness and taste by miles

I hit a pizza slump some time ago.  A slump with regard to my indoor pizza, baked in a conventional indoor oven.  I bought a baking steel, altered my dough a bit and I'm out of my slump, but I'm not sure what made the big difference, cooking surface or dough.

So, the dough I'm using: water 220 g, Gold Medal unbleached white 300 g, salt 5 g, Fleischmann's instant active yeast 1 g, sugar 5 g, olive oil 10 g, mix, knead, toss in fridge for a day.  Scale to 225 g pieces (to be rolled into 10" diameter pies).

Baking Prep: preheat oven to 550F convection.

Surface 1: Lodge cast iron 15" round.  Tossed pan into preheated oven and let warm up for a full hour.  Surface temp registered 570F using a infrared gun.

Surface 2: Baking Steel (bakingsteel.com), preheated in the same manner, temp also 568F with same thermometer.

Baked a simple margherita on each surface (an hour apart) using the same dough, 4 minutes baking time.  Action shots below:

Final Pie

 cast iron

Baking Steel

Side view

 cast iron

baking steel

Bottom

 cast iron

baking steel

Verdict? Despite similar looking images, hands down, the Baking Steel wins.  Much better texture, more crisp, better volume and taste.