Welcome to the strange world of infrared broiling! ;) I've had my Bluestar with a similar dinky broiler for about a year now. I've been an avid cook for 30+ years, and this is baffling me too. What I've learned from experiment, is I really can't broil successfully more food than fits under the silly little 8.5"x11" burner, which amounts to maybe one big steaks or salmon filet. For my old signature garlic bread or croutons, I need to put it down on almost the lowest rack to keep from burning to black charcoal :( It also cycles off annoyingly if the door is closed, basically leaving whatever is under it partially cooked until it cycles back on again. So when I do broil, I leave the door open. Fortunately, where I live, we can BBQ outside year round so broiling is not a high priority for me. Sorry I'm not much help, but misery loves company, no?

Update: I attended a cooking demonstration at DCS yesterday. I was the only visitor, and Linda who conducted the demonstration was familiar with my broiling problems. I was there to learn techniques to improve charring. They did not have a working DCS 30" model like mine, so we used the 36" model. They asked me to bring items to broil. I brought 1/4" pork chops, and a 1" steak. Linda kept the door of the oven open to broil the meat. She was told by a technician that this would enhance the broiling. She also recommended that I coat any meat in olive oil, which we did. Although I showed her that my manual gave instructions to keep the door of the broiler closed while broiling, we tried it her way. She placed four pork chops on the top rack, and we watched them broil, timing them. She broiled the pork chops 2 1/2 minutes on each side, and there was absolutely no char at all! The results were worse than my broiler at home! Linda was puzzled, and said this was not right. She took a minute to read the DCS manual regarding broiling. She was even more perplexed when she read that the oven door should be closed, as the technichian had said the opposite. Her conclusion: You'll have to cook thin meat on the cook top and fry them for better results, this broiler is unable to char. The results with the steak were equally disappointing. Again, their broiler performed worse than mine. We were able to get moderate char, after ten minutes of broiling, but the steak was not anywhere near medium rare or well, and the texture was like cardboard. Linda was trained as a culinary chef. When I remarked that the steak was somewhat charred, but not fit to serve to guests, she agreed. She then said, that this was not adequate performance for a range that cost so much. She apologized, and said she would report her findings to her bosses to see if there was anything she could do. She then xeroxed the broiling instructions from my manual, gave me food to take home, and I left with very little in the way of new techniques to help me broil. I had in fact enlightened her more than she had me. In conclusion, I will continue to experiment with rack positions, rubs, and marinades with sugar to see if I can enhance my char, especially when broiling very thin pieces of meat. If I hear anything else from DCS, I'll post it.

I, too, had more than my share of problems with my 36" DCS all gas 6-burner range, purchased back in 2003 or 2004 (can't recall exactly which year). We have since moved and sold the house with the range, but during the sale of our house, I had to disclose any big problems with the major appliances for the new buyer of the house, so unfortunately, I had to detail the litany of repair issues we had with the DCS range (many of which were similar to those listed above by Arthur). As my husband and I dug out our repair records and recounted the history of issues, even we were surprised at how time-consuming and costly it had been. The people buying our house were quite concerned that they were being left with a lemon of a range and almost made us give them a credit for the cost of a new range before we closed on the sale of our house. Fortunately, we worked it out, but I have to say that I will never buy a DCS range again. As Arthur says, when it worked, it worked great, but there were just too many times it didn't work as it was supposed to. The worst thing was that although it would frequently work okay when I was using a single burner or the oven, when I really needed many burners and the oven together, such as during a big dinner party or Thanksgiving or some other chaotic time, that was when it most often let me down. There were many issues, but the most common problem was a constant clicking and no ignition on the burners, especially if the oven was on. We cleaned the orifices, had the repair guy replace everthing, etc. To DCS's credit, they eventually sent a factory technician down from their shop (they are about 2 hrs away from us), and he re-plumbed all the gas lines, among other things. At that point, he even had a conference call with one of the engineers back at the shop to discuss several options and even they admitted that there were several design/engineering fixes that needed to be made. Although we were appreciative of the extra service, all of his work was for naught, as we continued to have numerous problems. Now I have a GE Monogram 48" dual fuel and I have to say I love it. I thought it might be a step down in terms of "real" cooking power, but it definitely is not - it has super high heat as well as a fantastic simmer capability (probably copied from DCS since DCS made the GE Monogram ranges until a couple years ago when - I've been told - GE was dissatisfied with the DCS quality control and took manufacturing of their Monogram ranges back in house). Anyway, that's my saga, and I am sorry to say that, if asked, I tend to steer people away from DCS based on my experience. I'm glad to hear that not everyone has the same problems, and I know some people on this forum, such as weissman, love their DCS. Just my two cents.

Panzer, I have Gaggenau single convection oven and combi-steam oven, as well as a Gaggenau induction cooktop. Plus a small Wolf gas cooktop. My fridge and freezer are Miele, Advantium speed oven, Monogram warming drawer and DW, Marvel fridge drawers. Modern Aire hood. I don't believe in going for a single brand. I like to chose what suits me best and panel everything that will stand still for it. :) (I.e., everything but the ovens, Advantium and cooktops.) I don't know anything about current pricing. You can call any of the big retailers and get pricing info that may not be published on the 'net. Universal-akb has a good internet sales department who can help you with that. And I think AJMadison also carries all of these. What I want most in an oven is control and accuracy. I also don't want gizmos to decide how the oven works, like rapid preheat, turns off when the door opens, uses preheat mode to regain temperature after you've opened the door and let out some heat, etc. Gaggenau let's you choose to have rapid preheat, but it's an option in the settings. I don't want any stinkin' computer thinking it knows how I want to cook better than I do, with all those features that I listed. That extends to the menu things on the MasterChef. I use them a little on the Advantium because it's so different than other kinds of cooking. So I LOVE my Gaggenau oven because it will do everything I want the way I want it. You can chose any combination of top or bottom heat, some with only the center on, with or without convection, broiler with or without, etc. It also has its own pizza stone with a special electric element which makes excellent crusts. It's only 12" wide, however, so if you want big pizzas/loaves you have to make them oblong. I can slow cook, dehydrate, souffle, multiple level cooking, broil small, roast big, and everything in between. It'll do anything I want, the way I want to do it. The combi-steam is a marvel. It's the perfect toy for the rich and lazy. :) Some people do up a whole kitchen for the cost of the combi- and plumbing. I just saved up. :) One of the best features is "regenerate". If you have a plate of leftovers, like some sliced meat, potatoes, and veg, you can make it up and put it on the rack in regenerate mode and have it come out perfectly heated and with none of it gone all weird or overcooked. I'm constantly learning new things I can do with it. My first tries at rice were horrible, even though it's dead easy on the stove. I'd given up when a friend was asking, so I gave it one more shot when I wasn't actually making a meal (used it later, reheated). Finally got it right. I found a formula, finally. Use 2/3 the amount of water suggested on the package. At least it worked for field picked organic brown rice. :) It's dead easy once you have that. Use the settings on the clue wheel and adjust the timing for the density of the rice. Dump the rice and water in the pan and flatten it out, put it in, set the timer and forget it. That makes it even easier than the boil and set aside method (though that can be programed into an induction cooktop with memory). My latest trick is the pseudo-braise. Choose a slow cooking temperature on 100% steam, perhaps with just a trickle of liquid in the pan if you just want the tender meat without the veg/sauce. Terrific! There are recipes available for the combi-steam, but if you're used to slow cooking, braising, steaming and similar wet techniques, you can kind of moosh what you know together with the temperatures/steam settings/durations from the clue wheel, adjust for density and mass and kind of figure out how to do anything you want. The plumbed is GREAT! I've been sick and really couldn't face cooking. I thought I could at least steam the green beans, which I had bought at a small store where they only had them in a package with the ends already cooked. That was just rinse, dump in pan, stick in combi-, dump in ice bath, dump in dish. The oven was hot and all so I did up the asparagus too. And the artichokes. Dead easy. Very little prep work. Yummy. I'm sorry I don't have better answers for your direct questions, but I can enthusiastically recommend the Gaggenau ovens.