Don,
One of the first jobs I had out of trade school was to build a new die that made stamps gears. The gear was about 6" in diameter, had about 30 teeth, and was stamped from 8 guage strip. The shop had done this several times before so they had a "master" to check the die section made from HT A-2.
The die section was about 10" square and 3" thick. After the section was cut, milled square, ground square, and the bolt and dowel holes drilled, the minor diameter of the gear was bored. The section was then put on a rotary table so you could locate and drill where the "master tooth" was. Blue the section up and scribe the teeth using the "master". Then it was over to the saw, cut and weld a 3/8" blade and start sawing teeth. After you get all of the teeth sawed out, it was over to the die filer and file until the "master" went in. Then tilt the table and file in the clearance. All of this took about 3 weeks.
The shop was thinking about getting a larger bandsaw with bandfiling capablility but bought a sinker EDM instead. That 3 week job went down to 10 days and the bandsaw never got used. Now, they still make the same die section in a couple of days with a wire EDM.
The bandsaw in a tool & die shop doesn't wear out anymore. Since about the only people using them are fab shops and prototype, the market got saturated. The bandsaw isn't obsolete in all area's, just the high use ones.
JR