Like you, we also thought people who designed the Gagg oven as compared to Miele, didn't spend a couple of minutes doing usability testing. It is pretty obscure and terse with symbols and little in English.

After reading the manual online, turns out it is not too complicate as after all, it is just an oven :). You select the mode, then temp and all is well.

Once there, the Gagg has side openning door which we really like. My wife hates lifting heaving things over the oven door. In addition, the rotisserie on the Gagg is much heavier duty, capable of 13+ pounds where as the Miele is split over two smllaer units with each holding half as much.

So given above, we decided to go with Gagg even though we would have loved to have the Miele interface on it. We figured that we learn to use the interface whereas nothing makes up for the other two features above.

The other factor was that we like the Gagg steam oven better as it is also a normal convection oven. The Miele is pure steam which to us, is not necessary as we have other ways to doing just pure steam. By going with Gagg oven, we can have its combi steam match it.

For the third unit, we are just getting a GE microwave. We use the micro a lot and wanted it to work well and not have some kind of compromise because it is a speed oven. For example, we like the left openning door on that too, as opposed to some speed ovens where the door opens down.

Miele speed oven seemed nice but there were too many complaints about the expensive glass tray, and difficulty to keep it clean.

As to having 4 ovens, we didn't see the need as we have a wood fired Pizza oven. This way, we have one of everything :p. Have you considered one of these? They are expensive and take up a lot of space but if you want Pizza done right and in 2 minutes per, nothing else replaces it. And they also are wonderful for grilling over coals with a ton of space, no worries as far as clean up ("self cleaning" at 1000 degrees), and you can do ton of other things from baking bread to roasting items.

We have a Gaggenau combi-steam oven stacked over a Gagg convection oven, and LOVE them both. As Amirm said, the combi-steam can also be used as a smaller convection only oven, or you can combine steam & convection in addition to steam only. Both preheat very fast, and hold the temperature incredibly well.

We had ours installed in March 2007, so what we have isn't what's being sold now. Ours have knobs & symbols instead of words, which take some learning, but operation of both ovens takes a minimum of setting, i.e. no menu to work through. For the steam oven, turn the steam knob to the percentage of steam you want: 100, 80, 60, 30, or zero. For the convection oven, turn the mode knob to the elements or mode you want, i.e. convection, bottom element, top element, broiler, etc. Then for either, turn the temperature knob to whatever you want--this turns on the oven & preheat. There are timed operation & delayed start functions on both ovens.

I believe the current models have a touch screen rather than knobs. Most likely the German can be switched to English or any other language for the countries that Gaggenau is sold in. The 300 degrees is likely to be Centigrade since the unit you saw was using German, and I'd expect that it can be changed to Farenheit. Of course you'll want to verify this.

One feature that really separates Gaggenau ovens from the rest is the side opening door, which can open to almost 180 degrees if there is no wall in the way. Being able to get items with the hot door out of the way is so much easier. An open oven door stays put where you leave it. The racks & trays slide very easily with no side wobble or friction. The interior of our convection oven is a beautiful cobalt blue, and the combi-steam has a stainless steel interior.

Rosenblumr, I just attended a Gaggenau demonstration about 2 weeks ago and they very clearly said that you can pick from among several languages (seemed like a huge number as I recall!) so I'm sure the one you saw just needs to be changed. Also, gizmomike, the current ones they are demonstrating are still knob based...they didn't say anything about changing to touch. It was based on your suggestion that I went to that demonstration as I was looking for an oven with a delay bake feature and I will now be getting the steam combi. The regular oven is beautiful, though! I just couldn't bring myself to give up the full extension shelves...the Gagg shelves I tried were sticky to get in and out. Even though I've lived with that for centuries (seems like), I'm just so impressed that someone finally figured out a way to avoid it that I want those shelves. And I guess the fact that my house is old and the Gagg's are so modern looking...I decided to stick with just the combi as an alternative to my Thermador pro oven. Luckily, I don't think they have to go side-by-side.

Has anyone looked at the Kitchenaid Architect II series "steam assist" double oven? Model KEBU208SSS. I like the idea of the Gaggenau steam/convection combo, but I'm not sure I want to give up the fullsize second oven.