In Java 1.4 it won't make any sense to even have the cast method.
The trick about it, is that given a Class<T>, it returns T - or throws a ClassCastException. It's usefull if you need a T but are given something else, like when adding something to a generic collection. Class.isInstance should always go first of course
Now in Java 1.4, it won't make any sense since Class is not generic, and therefore cast could only return Object. You would have to cast it manually again.