I suspect cast iron pans are talked about more often than they are used, so I suppose the analogy still works.

Stainless steel and carbon steel pans have most of the same upsides of cast iron, but none of the downsides. Which is why they are the workhorses of restaurant kitchens everywhere.

A cast iron skillet doesn't evolve.

The nice thing about Vim is that it evolves to your needs as you configure and reconfigure and tweak as you go along, exploring different itches.

I change my .vimrc ever so often, and the changes usually rewards me.

As Frank Siegert used to say (maybe still does): "Vi is the answer. Now what is the question?".

I setup my vimrc about 15 to 20 years ago, and I haven't touched/cleaned it since.

I think any decent text editor would meet the definition then, but also wasn’t the defining feature of the cast-iron skillet that it required a greater amount of cleaning? What do you have to clean up?