Pellet grills make for a great compromise - push button ease of use, very accurate temp control and good wood flavor with no gas or chemical flavoring. Traeger - The original and still a good value. Not as good as a MAK or Twin Eagles but a lot less expensive. Memphis - Stay away. Some years ago they were the best available but they've had very significant reliability issues the past few years. MAK - Generally considered the best with the demise of Memphis. Similar high price as Memphis. Doesn't get as hot as Memphis but provides better smoke and most importantly is reliable. Very popular with serious BBQ folks. Twin Eagles - Generally good but a few people have had issues so doesn't appear as reliable as MAK but much more reliable than Memphis. Both grilling and smoking are decent. More aesthetically appealing to many people than MAK.

Denaliman I do not have the IR burner. This grill gets real hot and cannot image needing higher heat. The temperature readout regularly shows 750-800 degrees, but feels even higher. Cooking to fast is more of a problem than not having enough heat. I have never cooked on an IR burner so cannot comment on that aspect. My burners are easily removed so if you want an IR burner later it would take 5 minutes to replace. You remove the grates, flavor grids, and burners to clean. The grill heats up fast and when the cast burners get hot that stay hot. I really can't imagine needing more heat. With 96,000 btu's from 3 burners on high that is a lot of heat. My old Weber had 3 burners which I believe were 12,000 btus's each and it cooked fine. What you will find is that you turn the burners down after searing and cook on medium high. When you open the hood on a warm day you will not believe the heat that comes out. The 790 has the right amount of grilling area. You can really cook a lot of food on it. With the zone panels in place the temperature can be varied from burner to burner. One word of caution is the grill is really heavy. It moves easily on the wheels, but mine was a tailgate delivery so had to unpack and get it into place. If buying from a store they will set it up for you if not you must do a little assembly. My wife thought I was crazy to spend so much on a grill, but 4 years later she admits it was a worthwhile purchase.

I am a lifelong Weber charcoal kettle user and fan. However, since we also grill at least a couple times a week year round, last fall I decided to buy a gas grill for the sake of the convenience of just turning a knob on verses lighting and waiting for coals to be ready. I decided on the Lynx, it seemed to have the best fit and finish, and is very well built. We're empty nesters, so the 30" is all we really needed. The rotisserie works well, and is fun to use. I did get one infra red sear burner, and it does get hotter than the burner over the ceramic briquettes, but doesn't seem to cook as evenly, nor sear anything close to real charcoal! I'm glad I kept the Weber, and I find myself still using it more for things like steaks. While the gas is convenient, IMO there's just no substitute for cooking over real charcoal.

I have cooked on all three and the TEK IR is the only gas grill that cooks as well as charcoal. It's advantages over charcoal are that it is quick to set up, easy to clean up and does an excellent job of creating the charcoal taste. As many here know, the flavor is created by the smoke from the fat striking the hot surface be it charcoal or something else. The higher the IR energy (from gas or charcoal) and the less the flame, the more smoke generated rather than being turned into additional flame. The TEK creates a great deal of smoke because the IR glass sits between the flame and the dripping grease. On older style IR burners there is still an open flame to ignite the grease drippings reducing the amount of smoke to add flavor. With charcoal, once the embers are glowing red, it is emitting a lot of IR and much less to no flame and hence produces a lot of smoke and flavor. I have owned the FireMagic and I would not purchase another. The burners are cast SS but they still do rust over time and the flavor grills wear out too. They are very hard to clean and the heat was not anywhere near as good as the advertisements. If you are the type that never clean a grill and don't mind a gritty looking grill it may not matter. I am the type that wants it to look clean and inviting each time and the self cleaning feature along with the dishwasher removal panels makes the TEK a breeze to clean and keep looking nice. For me that was worth a lot. The more conventional grills like the Firemagic, even with their ceramic infrared burner are not even a close match.