> "Bitter" is exactly the word that came to mind when I thought of a
> mesquite smoked steak. An hour seems like overkill, too. I love a nice
> sear on a good steak, cooked to medium-rare. Smoked, nope.

That is a understandable fear, but an hour with something light like apple wouldn't add much in that time. The goal was to hit 125, which took close to an hour at 250.
At that point they were taken off and seared in a cast iron pan, as the crust is, in my opinion, one of the best parts. This brought the steak to a nice medium rare.
This is following the idea behind the reverse-sear method of cooking a steak, hit the target temperature then go to a pan to finish.

> If I ate steak often my steak of choice would be a so-called cheap cut.
> Chuckeye (aka Delmonico). Nope, I wouldn't smoke it.

Thats a good pick! And by no means is smoking the best, or only way to cook steaks, and I wouldn't use it on everything. Nor the choice of wood, all depends on taste and what the goal is