So basically what you say is agreeing with his observations ?!
If you cold forge there are some benefits (but the question would be what can actually be reliably be cold forged and be a useful object in our precise world ?).
If you hot forge and/or heat treat, most of the benefits are lost pretty fast, so it doesn’t make much difference.
As the OP seems to intuit there is probably not much real strength benefits to forging for useful objects in real use cases scenarios, the reason they are forged have to do with manufacturing processes more than anything else.
If you cold forge there are some benefits (but the question would be what can actually be reliably be cold forged and be a useful object in our precise world ?). If you hot forge and/or heat treat, most of the benefits are lost pretty fast, so it doesn’t make much difference.
As the OP seems to intuit there is probably not much real strength benefits to forging for useful objects in real use cases scenarios, the reason they are forged have to do with manufacturing processes more than anything else.
At least this is what I understand…