I went with the Profile double-oven gas: here are my reasons. I like the smaller-size top oven for daily use, and the lower oven will only be used on occasion, so I'm ok with its location. (There's no room for a wall oven in my tiny kitchen -- and I have no plans to tear out cabinets and rearrange.) I'm a good cook, and I honed my skills on low-end domestic ranges because that's what was available: I don't need a commercial range to cook what I like, and I'm too busy with other aspects of my life to change my cooking style now. I also prefer not to deal with "pro" level BTUS and the ventilation complications they might add. I also am not willing to give up self-cleaning ovens -- which puts many pro-style ranges out of contention. I liked the slide-in setup and the angled control-knob location on the Profile, so that, and the price advantage, led me to choose it over the Cafe. Re: price, I bought mine from a local dealer, and I got the price down a bit by asking them to meet the ajmadison.com price. They didn't quite get there, but I was willing to pay a little extra for local sales/delivery/service reliability. Everyone's situation is a little different, but I found that the Profile slide-in fits best with my kitchen and the way I use it.

Avoid the Samsung. Cooks great, bakes great. Horrible Reliability. Here is the sad story. Trying to get warranty replacement or refund from Samsung, which has been utterly unresponsive to service calls. Retailer only somewhat better. It is utterly unacceptable that a range purchased for $1,8000 on 8/31/13 and not installed until Nov. 25, 2013 because of kitchen renovation delays -- and then only lightly used in two-person household -- blows up with a bang that interrupts electrical service in the entire house on June 27 when my husband simply put on a teapot to heat and then, despite "repairs," has a continuing series of operating issues preventing its use after only 8 months of service. It is also utterly unacceptable that Samsung, as manufacturer, was completely unable to schedule repair services within less than three weeks of the initial catastrophic failure of the range, despite many hours I spent on the phone, and on hold, with Samsung representatives. And despite the promise of one of them, ironically named Jesus, that he had placed an order for the retailer to deliver a comparable replacement range within a day or two (before the looming July 4 holiday). Alas, that was what is known as the Big Lie, clearly intended to simply get me off of the phone. Getting zero satisfaction from Samsung, I turned to the retailer, PC Richard, where I have found somewhat responsive service -- although the service people who are scheduled to appear within a week or 10 days of most requests never arrive with the appropriate parts, which are only ordered then, requiring a second service call, and a wait of additional weeks before anything is "fixed." And if the job requires two service people, a many-weeks-long wait, for special scheduling. The problems: After that loud bang and whole-house electrical disruption on June 27, nothing in or on the range top or oven worked, despite multiple attempts to reset it. The E-84 error code indicated simply that service was required (duh). Happily, at least, the circuit and surge protectors we have in the house to protect my extensive home office equipment, TVs, stereos, etc. did their jobs and after some panicked resetting of circuits, it turned out everything else could be reset. But the unit itself was useless for next FOUR WEEKS, until PC Richards finally got what was described to me as a new CPU for it, PLUS the two repairmen required to install it. They worked most of the afternoon of July 28 replacing a large circuit board underneath the burner area and declared the range fixed. While cooking two days later, I began noticing that the left side burners were behaving erratically. Especially the front one was turning itself off unexpectedly. But I had a lot of houseguests coming for next few weeks and decided just to keep an eye on it. What I determined, after the mayhem of hosting 14 visitors to my "beach house" subsided and I was left with only two guests, was that the left front burner would not recognize pots smaller than 12" in diameter, even though it is supposed to work with 6" (minimum) pots, and that the rear burner on the left only erratically accepted anything but huge pots. Called PC Richard on Aug. 11 and added range top complaint to a previously scheduled service call for my Samsung over-the-range microwave/convection oven (another Samsung lemon). Then, a few days later, my sister decided to bake thank-you cookies for her brother in law in my oven late at night. Before one batch was out of the oven, the unit had started to make very loud, and very much abnormal, fan sounds. Next morning, called PC Richard again, and added oven problem to the service call previously scheduled for today, Wednesday, Aug. 20. The PC Richard service man arrived this afternoon and quickly discovered the replacement part he'd thought he had ordered for the microwave wasn't the one he'd brought. Then he turned his attention to range. After calling Samsung and waiting -- on hold -- in my kitchen for more than half an hour to talk to a Samsung rep, the serviceman confirmed both problems (surprise) and said he's ordering parts for a fan located behind the range top control panel and some kind of induction controllers for the burners that he says were not part of the CPU he replaced three weeks ago. It is obvious, at least to me, that the range I bought is a lemon and an electronic nightmare. It is a good-enough convection oven and induction cooktop -- when it works -- but simply not constructed to withstand the "rigors" of actually being used to cook or bake in even a small household. And I know what I’m talking about. While this is my first induction cooktop, I previously owned a GE convection range in another house for more than a decade without experiencing any comparable issues. In fact, the only range that has ever given me these sorts of problems was a Thermador purchased (and quickly replaced under warranty) in 1979! It can't take the heat; I want it out of my kitchen. This lemon of a range came with a one-year warranty when I purchased it last Labor Day weekend. Now, I have asked Samsung to replace the unit with a comparable -- working -- model ASAP, or better yet, arrange a full refund for me with PC Richard, so that I can replace this piece of Samsung junk with a functioning appliance of my choosing. At this point I have lived with a propane camp stove instead of a functioning range nearly all summer, and have neither the time nor the patience to put up with endless service calls my Samsung NE597NOPBSR/AA quite evidently requires.

"4.4 vs 4.1 cubic ft in the oven: is this a significant difference?" No. "How much do I REALLY care about the # of racks and positions?" Dunno. Seems like you've answered your own question. If you do not care, you do not care. Personally, I make use of the three racks and the flexible arrangements that the oven in my GE stove gives me, I do the kind of entertaining and baking where those features have proved useful --- for example, running mass quantities of baked goods through the overn, heating potluck dishes, etc. "-Warming zone...is there any point to this?" Not for me. Somebody must like them and I see that GE is putting them on several stoves. "-Convection: * * *don't want to learn a new way to cook. Would it be foolish to not get it in case I change my mind in the future?" You do not need to learn a new way to cook. I find that some things just cook a bit faster (using convection may shave half an hour off turkey roasting times for me.) Some things may wind up looking a bit better with less need for my intervention. It also helps some when, say, I want to brown the tops of biscuits, for which I turn on the convection "raost" function. IIRC, the current GE ranges' over controllers can adjust temperature down for you, if you want. I've never really found that necessary, but ymmv. Persoanly, I like convection for breads, cookies, and roasted meats and veggies, and anytime when I have large quantities in my GE stove's oven. That said, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. That is why you can search here on "convection" and find all kinds of opinions. If it does not make any difference in price, you might as well get it. "Hidden bake: I've heard mixed thoughts but it seems like something I would want so that ooey gooey food doesn't drip on the heating element." The trade-off with the hidden-element flat-floor is that the oven takes a few minutes longer to pre-heat. That really bothers some people and does not matter to others. I'm in the latter category, myself, and would like to have one just because it is easier to keep the oven clean. "Bridge element: *** I can still use each burner separately without it, right?" Yup. "Oh, and the appliance guy told me that even if I got convection, I could still use the oven on the regular setting. That's true, right?" Yup.

We've had a Thermador 30" slide-in for 10+ years now, and I absolutely hate the simmer burners. They don't work anywhere near as well as a true simmer flame, the constant on-off drives me crazy, and they won't work in a power outage. We hardly ever use them. Interestingly enough, the normal burners can be turned down extremely low by carefully adjusting the knob between High & Off. Aside from that, the oven and cooktop work well. We've had maybe 3 service calls, (all to do with the heating elements burning out or coming loose) in 10+ years. The annoying thing is that the local service co. doesn't carry Thermador parts, so they have to make a trip out, determine what parts are needed, and then come back a week or 2 later to make the repair. Aside from that, lately we've been getting an intermittent error code, for which the solution is to shut off the power at the breaker box, and turn it back on. We're currently planning a kitchen renovation, but will be getting a separate rangetop and ovens. The new Thermador has the star-shaped burners which might do a better job of heating up the bottom of the pan than the traditional round burners, but we ruled it out because it still has those awful simmer burners. My wife and I recently visited a Wolf showroom, and I asked whether they had ever considered star-shaped burners for their ranges and rangetops. The rep told me that they had ruled them out because they were too difficult to clean. Wolf has had some problems with enamel chipping in their wall ovens. I don't know whether this is the case in their ranges as well. They are known for excellent service though. Other than that, you're probably right that it's a safe but boring choice. It does have a great simmer burner though. I would highly recommend a visit to a Wolf showroom if you have one in your area. The people there are very helpful and informative. I can't really speak to GE, as I haven't looked at it. If we were replacing our 30" range, I think I would probably be pushing for a Bluestar, but my wife would reject it, and we'd settle on the Wolf.