I think your information may be confused. The flukes have always been made from a relatively low strength steel, either edge welded plate in new Zealand or cast in China. I suspect the reason they have changed back is simply due to economics, or maybe the new plant does not have casting capability. There is no need for higher strength materials in the flukes.
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Presumably this means they are now cheaper?
My understanding is that, in China, with the right volume (whatever that means) it is much cheaper to cast than, cut, bend and weld. So I suspect your second option is correct.
As an aside - and maybe Vyv can validate (from a metallurgical background) - it is my understanding that the whole sorry affair was as a result of 'differential' galvanising. They had a cast fluke, a mild steel rollbar and a HT shank and when galvanised it looked awful - each component (on one anchor) looked a different shade of metallic grey. Even multiple galvanising did not solve the problem. Moving to a lower strength steel allowed them to galvanise the anchor with a, more, even shade of metallic grey. The rest is, of course, history. A better answer would have been to simply spray the whole thing with a metallic paint (but they never asked me - cannot understand why
Jonathan