I have had cast iron, brushed stainless steel, and the composite plastic type sinks in various houses that I've owned. The cast iron looks the best in my opinion, but from a maintenance standpoint, a brushed stainless steel is best. The cast iron just give you a feeling of permanence that you do not get with a stainless steel sink that instead of going "thunk" when you hit it, goes "ding"... Of course, there are some higher gauge (thickness) stainless steel sinks that are quite a bit better than the normal ones that you find being used. Scratches on brushed stainless steel are not that noticeable and you can take a 3M scrubber to the metal and clean off anything that might get on it. If you do that on a polished stainless steel sink, you will be slowly converting it to brushed on... Of course, I prefer to install a stainless steel sink over a cast iron one since they are tremendously lighter... One other thing ... Cast iron sinks tend to break dishes and glasses if they slip out of your hand when you are washing them... That is not as likely to happen with a stainless steel sink...