I am planning to build a home next year.  My father has enough steel frames (10" thick) that he has used to build commercial buildings as well as barns.  I am wondering if steel frames with enough insulation would be better or worse than ICF construction?  The initial cost of the materials would be cheaper with the steel, but would the home be as healthy and efficient. 

When you say steel frames, are you talking about steel studs? If you already have enough of them to build a house with, then that would be pretty tempting, unless money is no object. I suppose it depends on where you're building, like if you're in a high wind area then maybe the steel studs wouldn't be as appealing. But otherwise, you could use rigid foam board as sheathing to mitigate the thermal transfer of the steel, and end up with a very well insulated structure.

It all depends on your priorities. With the ICF structure, you not only get the R-22-26? continuos insulation, airtight walls, but also the other inherent benefits: fire rating, stc, strength, etc. If those things and the other benefits are appealing, that is the way to go. Can you use steel studs for interior walls?

Given that steel conducts thermal energy, your walls start off at a disadvantage for achieving an energy effcient wall assembly. You can do better than a typical wall assembly by double framing the walls (staggered), paying extra to have wall insulation installed properly, and paying extra for 2x the insulation. (not hating, HERS raters get paid to inspect insulation installations because quite frequently corners are cut to accomodate plumbing & electrical chases, or just out of expediancy - this will come from your lowest bidder - "which is where I get paying extra for proper insulation installation")

Or you could use the recommendation above to be better than average, but still not going to be as energy efficient as ICF.

Again, depend on whether you are looking for better than average or HIGH Performance walls.