It will buy you a small oven for baking but not toasting and a bad hood for venting :-)

I wish I could do a good vent and the micro some place else but due to space constraints it's not possible. My old GE Spacemaker was loud too. I hate that! It's a ridiculous amount of noise these things make. It didn't seem to do a great job either but the vent hookup behind the wall was faulty horrible as we have found out. My folks have a GE and their house smells when cooking and it's loud as the dickens too. Both units have vent to the outside. Theirs even runs directly out the back through the wall, no run. I would probably venture into speed cook but plan to mostly use it for convection only mode. The baking and roasting features interest me the most. If the quality of that isn't so great, I probably wouldn't use it much so want to steer from claims that don't really deliver. I probably will continue to do microwaving on quick frozen meals. A mix of scratch and frozen foods is what I'm planning for. Economical use of a smaller oven than that on the range. I'm not sure what I'm paying for with the extra $200+. The other unit I'm looking at is a Whirlpool true convection 1.8 which claims to roast and bake. It has a 4 speed fan. The steaming feature is good for me too. The Advantium says: Speedcook; Microwave Convection Bake Broil Warm Proof Toast I'd expect steams too although it isn't mentioned. Sounds all around functional. But could I expect the broil/toast features from any convection microwave anyway? (I don't trust sales people to give me knowledgeable or even honest answers on these things). http://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/GMH6185XVQ.html So, does the Advantium cooking quality taste better for some reason? Or convection out of one or the other runs about the same? Both will brown nicely. I love browned and crispy foods!

prospect711: Thanks for your reply! I had my eye on the Sharp R-820JS, which is the stainless steel sister of your Sharp! (It sounds like an amazing appliance that pretty much does it all!) I just couldn't figure out how to get the size to work. Having a deeper cabinet is a Very interesting idea! I'm going to show this to DH to see if we can somehow swing it with our Ikea cabinetry. Thanks again! (Love your cabinets and beautiful backsplash!) Luv2Laf: Your photo is Exactly what I wanted it to look like! And right next to the fridge seems like such a perfect spot! If only it had convection too - I was really hoping for a little back up oven to cook and reheat small meals. Hmmm... Thanks so much for your reply, gorgeous photo, and the food for thought! colorfast: Okay, so it seems that the microwave/convection combos, unless they are the very wide OTR type, are pretty deep. I'll stop hunting for one that isn't. (No more wild goose chase!) We were planning on having 15" wide cabinets flanking the fridge on either side as a pantry (floor to almost ceiling height), but, maybe we should make one wider set of cabinets instead, where we can put the microwave/convection oven. I love how you have yours next to a counter. That seems to be an ideal setup to me. As for recessing it into the wall, I think we're out of luck, since the wall backs a stairwell leading to the basement as well as the stairs leading upstairs. I'm not sure that we can mess with that. I will share these ideas with DH. Thank you for your reply!

Correction - there are actually 36" from top of range to bottom of cabinet. If I get the "hated" OTR (e.g. Viking) there would be about 20 inches between the bottom of the MW and the gas range top. There is a window in the kitchen (but not next to the range). I sacrificed a counter to make an Eat In area. So I am sort of married to this OTR MW concept instead of a hood. I would like to have a pro style range, because it's what I am used to from my previous place. But with the MW clearance, I am concerned. I am not finding consistent clearance requirements from the Viking range and Viking OTR MW installation documents online. So, I should rephrase the question: is 36" between top of pro-style range and bottom of upper cabinets sufficient? Thanks!