Thanks for your input everyone. I can see that variations in pan material/thickness, oil coverage, range power, etc. might make a temperature chart essentially impossible to craft. Perhaps, someday, I'll be up to do doing some research for a standard cast iron skillet with grapeseed oil. I think the experiment would be to try 350, 400, 450, 500, and 550 degree variations for each of the types of meat (all brought to room temp and lightly covered in an oil with a high smoke point). The question arose when I last seared tuna. I've been doing a lot of sous vide steaks recently. When not using a blow torch, my technique has always been to get my pan as hot as I can get it before searing. That gives me a nice maillard reaction / crust. Then I tried tuna. Turns out, that was too hot for tuna - it didn't give a nice sear, it carbonized. I tried again with a lower pan heat with much better results. If I recall, Modernist Cuisine warns of similar carbonization problems when using a blow torch on meats other than beef. So, I've at least determined the real answer is more complex than "as hot as possible" - but finding ideal temperatures for my range / skillet could be challenging.
