My Dacor oven has a great full extension glide rack.

If I were designing my dream oven I would want to make sure that the interior lights provide light even to the uppermost rack. It's not easy broiling in a dark oven with the door closed. A digital readout of the oven temperature would be handy too. If you bake bread then you might want to find an oven with the proper temperature for proofing dough.

I would want self cleaning, fast preheat, one convection and one thermal(for added interior space), spaciousness, great broiler, consistent heat, good lighting, easy learning, proofing, keep warm. I don't care about 100 racks as they're mostly in the way for this ex cook/baker. Slice and bake since age 50 (hmmm...coincidentally that's when last kid was born- On one hand, sift, measure, take out, put away, clean floured house or pop out the old tube of cookies!!!! LOL. Last year I made good old butter cookie dough, put in freezer and lost it. That's it!

Convection -- yes, I love it.

Glide out racks are nice, but I woudn't get obsesssed by them. I have realized with hindsight that the glide-out rack feature loomed so large of my list of must-have features because it is one of the only features one can actually see/feel in action in an appliance store. So I ended up giving far more weight to that feature than many other features.

I agree with mcmann that good interior lights are a big help when cooking. My oven has bright halogen lights that illuminate the oven interior very well.

I'm also a baker and don't feel any need for a steam oven. I find that putting a broiler pan full of hot water in the oven provides all the moisture I need if I'm baking bread that needs moisture for a good crust. I like having a "proofing mode" and use it all the time, although I survived for years without one on my old range.

Other things to look for: a digital temperature control so that you can immediately see the temperature in the oven and an electronic timer right on the range. I realize that this adds more electronics to the range than some people like to have. But I love the precision and control for baking.

Convection - and what I have in my new icon works so much better than what I had in the old whirlpool.

Glide racks - I can fill the pie right to the top with runny filling and not have it slop out as I'm pushing the pie in. I use to put the pie in partially filled, and then ladle the rest of the filling - had to be very careful not to burn myself on the sides of the oven. I still have to be a bit careful as there is one point that the racks settle back but it's way better.

Low temp settings. Mine can go as low as 80 degrees (proofing cycle) the only thing I don't like is the mid range (100-175) is only available with the dehydrating cycle and that runs the convection fans. I incubate yogurt at 125 and don't need the fan running for that as the containers are covered.

I'd like a faster preheat than I have, but at least this one tells me exactly what temp it is. My old stove had a timer and beeped after so many minutes regaurdles if it was up to temp or not. It seemed like a faster preheat but it actually took longer - just was way harder to tell what the inside temp actually was.

Self Cleaning - I guess this is nice, though I rarely use it. Now that I'm not spilling pie filling all over the place maybe the oven will stay cleaner (though I made a big mess with an overfilled apple pie that juiced way up).

I don't know about steam - didn't read much about it until after I bought my ovens. DH tells me to stop reading about other appliances. My Elux is well sealed and a pan of boiling water keeps it quite steamy inside.

Multi phase cooking. I can set the oven to cook at 425 for 15 minutes (to set pie crusts) and then lower itself to 375 to finish.

My oven has a lot of features I've not messed with yet - who knows what else I'll find I love having.

Cathy