Absolutely - the bit of work actually makes a fair amount of sense if you're doing multiple pans and set up a good spot to work on it (and already have the power tools), but it also depends on where you are. Sanding down your cast iron is NOT something you want to do inside an apartment.

A decent carbon steel pan will probably set you back 2-2.5x the cost of cheap cast iron or half the cost of fancy pre-smoothed cast iron, and you can be doing things like flipping hash browns right away (not recommended in cast iron....)