It’s largely people trying to prove that such things are scientifically plausible, as they are cool and developing a way they can plausibly be done would allow there to be potential for their implementation in the game under non-LAWK settings
Edit:
Someone has actually ‘proved’ that it is possible to smelt metal underwater (The Holy Grail: Hhyyrylainen’s Challenge of UC Metalworking Completed and Formalized with 47 Citations! ) but shaping said metal has yet to be proved (as water would enter the molten metal, and it would be generally difficult to shape underwater)