I've used the Kohler cast iron pans or acrylic solid surface ones (Corian or Coraianeseque knockoffs like Swanstone) in several projects. It gives a nice vintage feel while still being able to be easily cleaned. I prefer the cast iron, especially for a vintage home. It's just a more substantial feel.

But, I have to admit that the complete Corian clad shower with the Corian pan that I did was pretty awesome when it comes to the bit about the seams being virtually undetectible. Of course, an expert Corian fabricator did the job, and it wasn't cheap. (Around 6K, if I remember correctly.) But that homeowner didn't want to ever deal with scrungy mold or mildew ever again. Extra care was taken at the construction phase to be sure to use fully kiln dried hardwood and to have the studs be perfectly in plane so that the walls were really flat. They didn't want to pay for coving the wall corners, but that would have been an extra step to give a smoother more cleanable surface, plus reinforced that epoxy joint in case of the home settling. This was done about 8 years ago though, and I've not had any negative feedback about it at all and I do bump into them occasionally.

We have a solid surface shower pan in our master bathroom. It is very attractive and is a near perfect match to the tile in the shower. It had to be custom made, so it was spendy--something like 2400. Dollars. and it is not a huge shower.

But I wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

In my husbands exercise room bathroom I have a Kohler cast iron pan. Awesome and very reasonably priced if you don't need custom sizes. Attractive as well with tiled walls.

Here's a link to my solid surface pan maker--Alantra

Here is a link that might be useful: Solid surface pan

I recently saw a soapstone shower floor. Gorgeous doesn't do it justice.

I really wanted to use the Kohler cast iron shower pan in our recent bath renovation.
But the Kohler dimensions didn't fit our space.
I looked into soapstone and found it was way out of our budget for a shower pan.
So, we went with a tile floor in the shower.

I posted in bathrooms for you palimpsest. We are very happy with our Kohler cast iron receptor.

I used one in our remodel of our master bath (built in 1989). It was a frameless shower and I chose to use the solid pan because I thought it would be simpler for my GC and would be less likely to have leaks. Well, the curb wasn't wide enough and the pan didn't pitch right and we had a major leak and had to tear everything out and do a tile floor. Frankly, I liked the way the solid pan looked better and it was certainly easy to clean. We're going with tile in our new build because I'm just too afraid to try it again. But, like I said, I think they look nice.

We have a solid swanstone pan. It is a year old and looks great and is easy to clean. Its white and looks just fine with the tile walls. One thing on size. Our is an odd size. Its a rectangle but with the door on the short side. Swanstone had exactly what we needed.

Older post discussing this is linked below, I especially like kgwlisa's corian base. I had contemplated something similar but due to odd size and off center drain it was cheaper to tile, wish I would have spent the extra to go with the corain. I think that solid bases can look just as nice and sometimes even nicer than tile.

Here is a link that might be useful: solid base, tiled walls

we used a swanstone pan in 2008 with tile surround in an upscale basement bathroom. the swanstone was set in a bed of concrete and it felt very solid when it was done. it was the nicest bath in the house. we looked at the kohler cast iron one, but the cost was about 4-5x.

the pan itself before installation felt a little plastic-y because it is predominantly acrylic, but that was only before it was installed onto concrete. it wore well and was easy to keep clean. we just sold that house.

Swanstone walls and shower pan here. Love it - so easy to clean, nice big niche, wears like iron.

Our neoangle showerpan and surround are cultured granite (dark beige or tan color). My DH calls it the single best thing about all the remodeling we have done - and that's literally 98% of the house and all systems.

We absolutely would not hesitate to do it again. Beautiful and a breeze to maintain.

We used the Kohler cast iron shower pan in our third floor bath. I believe it was part of the Katherine collection. We absolutely love it. The walls are subway tiles and the floor was done in penny rounds. It looks great and performs very well. I love not having grout to clean on the shower floor.

Our master bath shower pan is made out of the same granite as the vanity top. It is honed and has very small grooves cut in it so it is not slippery at all. It has a very low threshold. Because we have multiple shower heads, we had a larger than normal drain put in to make sure that water would drain away quickly so there would no chance of overflow with the low threshold. The base is guaranteed to never leak. We love the way it looks and no grout lines.

Badger-would love to see a pic.

Red Lover here a couple pictures of our shower base. Sorry they are not the best quality pictures. And I tried 3 times to re-size them but the first one keeps showing up very big.
We had our shower base custom sized but they also have standard sizes. It was done by our fabricator in Wisconsin but the company has a couple distributors elsewhere. You might be able to find a local fabricator that makes them.

The name of the company is Buffalo Stone.You can get more information and pictures from their website:
http://buffalonsp.com/index.html

Badger-very nice!