It seems like the argument is that at a lower price bracket, stepper motors offer higher performance than what a equivalently priced servo+encoder+controller combo can perform.

I felt like what I’m reading in this thread wasn’t matching up with that I see out in industry… Diamond turning machines are inherently low torque, low speed, AND nanoscale operations which uses servos for driving its respective axis. See precitech -youtube and in stark comparison Roeder’s 5axis optical mold machining. Wire EDM’s were all driven by servo motors until linear motors became popular. Even those famous JingDiao test samples are made on machines driven by servos.