I have the all gas version of DCS and the simmer on all the burners is fantastic! The SS top is easy to clean. I do occasionally stir fry though I have been using a large saute pan or my cast iron pan both good heat conductors so it works for me.

Not exactly correct - the DCS that you're looking at is a free-standing range with the controls on the front - all of the pro-style ranges - Wolf, Bluestar, etc are free-standing with controls on the front. Slide-in ranges are less deep than free-standing and overlap the counters on either side and the back - you need a strip of countertop behind a slide-in range.

I've had a DCS all-gas self-cleaning 30" range for almost 7 years now and I love it. The simmer on all burners is incredible and I like the sealed burners - they're easy to clean and produce more than sufficient heat for me to stir-fry which I do quite frequently. In fact, I often use my old flat-bottomed wok which doesn't require the wok ring.

I'm not too familiar with the current model of the dual fuel range but the original model did not have true convection (third heating element around the fan) like many of the other dual fuel ranges. If your main concern is self-cleaning, they make a 30" self-cleaning all gas range and one big advantage of the gas range is that the broiler is absolutely amazing. I do far more broiling now that I ever did before.

The other advantage of the all-gas range is that you don't need 240V electric for it they way you do for the dual fuel range in case your kitchen is not already wired that way.

The all-gas DCS is cheaper than the the dual-fuel, but my wife is concerned that the baking might not be as good.

However I would like a powerful broiler.

What is your experience with baking in a gas oven? However I do not know if the new gas oven has improved the convection quality over yours, so your answer may not be relevant.

As for electricity since this gas or dual-fuel stove is replacing an electric that presumably already has 240 installed, that should not be a problem. We will have to run gas into the kitchen.

The gas convection oven in my range is excellent. I'm not an avid baker but do make souffles, popovers, muffins, cookies and cakes and they've all come out fine. The oven does have a convection fan but not a third element like a true-convection electric oven would. The other thing about a gas oven is that the heat is moister than an electric oven so it's a bit better for baking bread and roasting meats. Turkeys and ducks have been outstanding, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. I think a good gas oven is certainly in the same league as a good electric oven - in fact I believe that most professional bakeries and restaurants still use gas ovens.

It seems the gas oven either lacks self-cleaning, or at least the version with self-cleaning seems to be out of stock and, when available, is even more expensive than the dual fuel with self-cleaning.

In googling, I have discovered only one serious complaint, a problem with rust in and below the sealed burners that first occurred in 2004.

It appears in the following link, though it originated elsewhere:

http://www.dealtime.com/xPR-DCS-RDT-305~RD-416216157828

The poster, John Fischer, seems credible.

"The stove is now a mess. For more than a year, the simmer burners have been fluttering, causing the ignition system to keep working whenever a burner is lit. The constant clicking sound is driving my wife and I slowly bonkers...it has made it almost unbearable to cook on top of the stove for longer than a few minutes. No stew for us!

When the local repair service came to look at it, they initially had a great deal of trouble taking the burners apart to see what was wrong. As it turns out, these burners (advertised as 'sealed') have no gaskets whatsoever. Every time I cleaned the range top with even small amounts of water, it seeped underneath, and the entire undercarriage of the top is now rusted-out. I never flooded the top with water...I followed the cleaning instructions in the manual."

Has anyone else had this problem with rust and incessant clicking?

To be honest, that review seems a bit odd to me. Very occasionally, I have had to clean the simmer ring when it flutters because the holes get clogged. It is held in place with a single hex nut and is easily removed with a wrench. You can then clean the holes with a paper clip and then replace it. This is a very rare occurrence that I've maybe had to do 3 or 4 times in 7 years.

If the burner gets wet, it will flutter for a short time and the ignitor may click until it dries out but then everything is fine. I can't imagine enough water getting in through the burner to actually rust out the undercarriage but I suppose anything is possible. Personally I wouldn't let a single bad review from epinions bother me - if you search around you'll find bad reviews on every product and brand imaginable.

I'm actually surprised that the self-cleaning all-gas is more than the dual fuel - it wasn't when I was buying mine but that was a while ago.

Another brand to consider is Capital - they were started by the original people from DCS and also make self-cleaning gas ranges with somewhat more powerful burners than DCS although they don't have the dual stacked burners that the DCS has for simmer.

You could also look at the Wolf dual fuel which gets good reviews as well.

Do these stoves need something to diffuse the gas and hold
the black tops up? Is this called a burner port ring?