For what it's worth, I just received an answer today from my local supplier. They were told that the cooktop has not been UL approved yet, but that they expect that to happen this week. They were also told that no cooktops have been shipped for residential use yet. This is pretty interesting since jacobsmishpacha had one delivered already! I am supposed to get more information tomorrow. I asked about the burner locations, since the picture of the 36" cooktop on BlueStar's website has both 22K burners in the front, but the specifications on their website have one of the 22K burners in the middle back instead. I'm guessing the specs are correct and the picture is old, but I'll see if they can clarify that. Eurostoves does have a picture of one with the grate off of the burner...it's hard to tell if the ring around the hole can serve as a wok ring or not...probably not if others were already told that it needs a ring. They also said the cooktop is a special order item (no returns). Is that what other people have heard?

Here is a quick update of my visit from the Bluestar technician. He replaced the ignition box and now all burners are up and running. He was not able to reconfigure the burners, so I will continue to have the two simmer burners. He told me that Bluestar emailed him the day before his visit and told him he could not do it. It would have been nice if Bluestar had also contacted me so I could find out from them instead of the technician. I can live quite well with the burners, although I will need to replace my two griddle pans, which rest on two burners, which will probably cost me $130 (I'll replace them with single burner griddles). I hope that Bluestar updates their website soon, so that consumers like me can make an informed decision between the rangetop and cooktop. My other issue is still outstanding, which is that the cooktop does not sit flush with my granite countertop. In the front it does, but on the rear 8" of the cooktop (on both sides) there is a 1/4" gap between the cooktop and the counter. This looks like a perfect place for gunk to accumulate. The technician kind of avoided the problem, and said maybe it was the cooktop and maybe the hole in the granite was causing the problem. He suggested that maybe I could put a little caulking or something there to close the gap. I don't think it is the granite, as the cooktop is not tight in the hole and it feels like there is some room there. The installer didn't complain about the cutout when he did the installation (I didn't notice it wasn't flat until after he had left). I don't want to be too picky, but I think the cooktop should not have a gap. I also have some concerns about the burners. When the technician was at my house, I told him that it looked like the 15K burner was not hot enough and that the simmer burners were too hot. He seemed to agree with me, but after fiddling with them said that they were adjusted as much as he could. He recommended that I buy a diffuser or simmer plate at Williams Sonoma if the simmer burner is still too hot. I don't think he really addressed whether or not the 15K burner was working properly. I was cooking on Wednesday and needed to warm up some milk. I thought I would give the famous Bluestar simmer a test now that it had been adjusted. I put a small pot of milk on the burner (lowest setting) and went about some other activities in the kitchen. The milk boiled over and made quite a mess. Perhaps I am just expecting too much from the cooktop. I have been so busy with Passover that I haven't even called Bluestar to address these issues- I will post the outcome after they have had a chance to help me out.

I actually owned the BS drop-in and it was great. It wasn't the easiest to clean but it also wasn't that bad. The only pain was having to remove all the grates *and* the knobs to lift the top. That said, I wouldn't have traded it for any sealed burner cooktop. I looked at the Capital and the power wok burner but the sealed powerwok suffers the same problem as every high powered sealed burner I've seen... it spreads the heat to widely. I demo'd both prior to buying the BS and the powerwok burner had all the heat going up the sides of the wok and the center wasn't getting much heat at all. I don't think they've redesigned that burner significantly so I wouldn't recommend it if you are really serious about wok cooking. If you get the BS, get an extra grate so you can modify it to accept a wok without the wok ring. Also, the grates on it are continuous, unless you have a different definition of that than I do. There are a couple of things with the BS to make it better: 1. get the extra grate and modify it. 2. ask if they will replace the rear center and rear left burner to simmer burners. They come with the 15k burner but it looks like they used the same 9.5k orifice they use on the simmer burner. If I recall correctly, this was due to fire certification because they didn't want to put a 1" back on it. 3. make sure you get the "white-glove" warranty extension. Not sure if they still offer that but you get an extra year and a BS tech out to check things out. 4. open up the top first thing and put foil under the burner bowls. I used foil to form little catch cups that I put into the support riser to the burners. Bits of food and liquid that fall down the center hole of the burner will fall into this area that is almost impossible to clean without slicing your hands. The catch cup prevents the need to get your fingers way down there. You'll know what I mean once you get in there. IMHO, there's nothing else on the market today that can even come close to the BS if you are looking for a drop-in cooktop. As a consumer, I'd love to see another player enter the market here... hint.. hint.. BTW, the comment about loosing drawer space is because the open burner design of the BS make it vertically thicker/deeper. The BS extends about 2-3 inches lower below the counter top than average sealed burner cooktops. Good luck with your decision.

Thanks for all the input. I may be mistaken about 2 simmers. All I know is the 2 back outside rear burners look aloke to me Star pattern , but the holes for the flames are just in the circle part and not in the arms (like the points on a starfish) I'm assuming these are the 2 simmer ones. The one in the center rear has the center ring of holes plus a single row of holes on the arms so I assume this is the 15 k. The 2 front burners are the same but have a double row of holes in the arms so I assume these are the 22k. If I could replace one of the 2 rears with a 15k , then I might be able to buy a add on griddle and have fairly equal heat used over those 2 burners. All that said we are really pleased with it , and if looks could kill , it would ! I bought a 42" vent hood off ebay that looks great and has performed well . We have not yet had all burners going at once . Admittedly it is not as powerful as most of the ones mentioned here , but at around $500 it is serving the purpose. It definitely does not look inexpensive. I'll try to post some pictures of the install . The wife is very happy with her kitchen.