Iron doesn't dissipate heat as quickly as aluminum. This is why all things "equal" (at least on paper), the iron will produce more power. It stands to reason the more heat retained in power production (and not wasted through transferring to the metal, and the coolant, and out the exhaust), the more efficient the engine will be. If someone ever figures out how to transfer 100% of the heat produced in combustion into power to the crankshaft, they'll have something, but it will never happen with internal combustion engines as we know them.
Iron heads will make good power, no question...but to compare an iron head that's had some porting done and flows 250-260 cfm (more for a round port) to a box stock Edelbrock is a bit "apples and oranges". Apply the same amount of porting to the Edelbrock head and you can get 325+ cfm before going to a wide port (the most flow I've seen from a non-wide-port E-head was in the 340-cfm range, but others may have seen more). Additionally, a box stock E-head purportedly flows 270-cfm (or thereabouts). For the same coin, you'll just be getting started with the E-head in terms of power producing capability whereas the ported iron head will be maxed out.
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