I'm no expert, but I'm under the impression that rather than the operation, the type of material is more of a factor.
Maybe this is more true with turning, but for aluminum I use WD40, stainless something like Anchorlube, probably Tap Magic for steel. Hell I've even used chainsaw bar oil on my lathe for some of my steel work and it does the job.
For a given type of material I'm curious why, say, milling would require a different lube as turning?
When turning steel, the primary concern is avoiding chips welding to the cutting edge. A small amount of dark cutting oil will prevent chip welding. When milling steel with the side of an end mill, the primary concern is avoiding recutting chips that are carried around by the tool and back thru the cut. The same small amount of dark cutting oil will make the cutter more likely to carry chips back thru the cut due to the somewhat sticky nature of cutting oil. Same lube, same material, but one situation gives the desired result while the other situation produces the opposite of desired results.
In a general machine shop environment which is where I come from, you don't necessarily employ the ideal coolant/lube for every situation. Rather, you compromise by typically running a soluble oil coolant that provides some lubrication and a lot of cooling capability across a variety of materials and cutting conditions. In some cases when milling with coated carbide tooling, the best approach is blowing a stream of air on the tool and using no coolant. Keeps the chips cleared and avoids thermally shocking the carbide. Chip welding isn't nearly so much of an issue in milling due the the intermittent contact of the cutting edges with the material.
In the OP's case, where he's primarily drilling holes in steel, there's no question dark cutting oil will give the best combination of tool life and economy. There's other specialized concoctions that may smell better or produce less smoke, but most of those come at a price several times that of dark cutting oil.
I'm not sure what "cutting" means since all machining operations involve metal cutting, but assuming it means sawing, there's only two options. Either use soluble oil flood coolant or cut dry. Keeping the blade clear of chips is key to bandsaw blade life as most lost teeth failures are a result of chips riding in the blade gullets into the cut and then jamming between the blade and the material. One tooth gets jerked out of the blade and stuck in the cut where it proceeds to strip out additional teeth as the blade passes thru. Flood coolant on the leaving side of the cut can wash the chips off the blade, or a small air jet aimed at the cutting edge can keep the chips blown free when cutting dry.