Chuck-
Interesting about the Confente cut outs being sent out for marking and possibly cutting, they would not have been good candidates for IC casting by the way Mario fabbed his lugs. The region adjacent to the spade stem pretty narrow, so is the area at the base of the body. At a minimum extra material would have been needed to provide good material flow, to be removed post casting, seen it done, just lots of work.
Nonetheless, the investment cast lugs that Rexart had made to basically Mario's design I do not think Mario used and they appear to me, as I type and stare at both of examples, that the lugs Medici used have a number of features that indicate to me the investment casting house used a circle where a parabolic shape was needed, production engineers love easy geometry, Mario would have had to add material back to achieve his "Confente" shape. Which it looks like he did to the Bocama's, at the seat lug for sure, but I do not think he got to use the investment cast lugs with the possible exception of the pista frame John Waner has.
As to DeRosa not casting in hearts, I do not think it would be too far away from what Masi did, perhaps easier. I would vote that lugs with no cutouts would be less expensive as fewer scrapped at the time of casting, less distortion to contend with possibly or more predictable dimensionally and easier to braze.
If Charles was in charge of marketing for them at the time he would be pushing for heart cutouts.
A money thing I bet.
John Jorgensen
Torrance Ca USA