I was trying to apply a coat of oil to my pan after cooking when I noticed the towel catching on a whole bunch rough spots from carbon build up on the pan. So I took a chain mail scrubber to the worst parts of the pan, and managed to peel off a bunch of build up. But after a few minutes of scrubbing, there was still a lot of carbon build up on the pan (as you can see in the picture), and the remaining stuff is going to be much harder to clean off.
So: Is there a better way to get all this stuff cleaned off of my pan other than elbow grease and time? Am I being foolish for trying to clean it off? Should I let it go and just cook?
Another thing to do, if you're not doing it already, is to use metal spatulas when you cook. You want to use ones with a straight edge and rounded corners. Then use that straight edge to scrape as you're cooking. It's like the opposite of a non-stick pan, that metal on metal scraping is a good sound and helps to even things out.