Iron’s initial use was no benefit to the human. It was used to destroy what civilization existed. You are reading way too much into it’s later use and benefits and ignoring real history.
There were no great Stone Age civilizations equivalent to the Bronze Age ones for the Bronze users to destroy. No literacy, no great cities, no thriving economies only small localized societies on the edge of starvation.
There is also no question that there was a centuries old Dark Age which descended upon Greece after the Trojan War where most of the benefits of the prior civilization were lost to all. Iron initial result was that it allowed the arming of barbarians from the north precipitating a holocaust previously unknown to the civilized world.
Reminds me of those scenes in the Lord of the Rings where the orc army is being outfitted with crude weapons from the underground ironworks.