I'm in the market for an electric cooktop and I like using cast iron cookware. I spent the summer at a friends house who had a GE smoothtop cooktop the manual for which had a long list of no-nos for the types of cookware that shouldn't be used with it including cast iron. I liked the idea of a smoothtop until reading the manual - they seem too bloody fragile and scratch prone.

So, then I got to thinking I'd get an electric coil cooktop instead and switch the elements out to solid elements which I saw years ago were available as replacements. Now that I'm looking for them, I can't find any.

Questions:
Does anybody make a solid element cooktop or the elements?
Anyone use cast iron with their smoothtop - comments?

Update:
I found Westinghouse makes solid element cooktops (PHP255W and PHP255S). Also, another option for smoothtops would be using a heat diffuser.