Ok, interesting.
I have a colleague from Nebraska and his family had a store and diner in a small town. Was always talking about the food and the burgers. He was telling me about the flat top grill and when they eventually closed the place and moved it; said the cook top must have been nearly 1” thick. I was thinking about the heat retention of a piece of metal like that. Of course, it would take longer to heat up, but would also be interesting for how that retained heat could make some food cook differently.
I’d like to compare the commercial flat tops to the ones from Walmart. If the only difference is the thickness of the cooking plate, I would probably hack one of those and make my own cook top out of a thick chunk of commercial stainless. Just an idea anyway.