^^^^^^ And before that, many a Wells-Fargo stagecoach completed it's journey on wooden wheels, with shrunk-on steel tyres.!
Wooden barrells also rely on the steel hoops to hold the staves tightly -enough together , that the barrell is fluid-tight.
There's nowt much new in engineering,just the knowledge falls into disuse when an alternative technology becomes more suitable for purpose, for a while.
As an aside, underfloor Central -heating is now the "in" high-efficiency heating-method........WELL! fancy that! the Romans had it a few THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
A great piece of research, nevertheless....about time the US Pilots started a class action against the legislators, for dereliction of duty, unfitness for purpose and Commercial bias against the aftermarket manufacturers.
The latter is irrefutable....they are imposing sanctions against the most reliable products, whilst leaving the statistically least-reliable OEM product untouched.