Well, that's reassuring. I was originally on board for Gaggenau despite the ridiculous price, but then we went to see them in the showroom and it was a huge let down as soon as I opened the gorgeous doors. The combi steam oven looked really small, too small to fit a frozen pizza in. Part of the rationalization for getting an $8K steam oven is using it for small things, like a single frozen pizza, instead of having to heat up the big oven. It looks like the oven cavity is 13" wide, so I think we should be able to just fit our 13" pizza stone in there. The Miele combi steam oven is not plumbed, but is much larger internally at 2/3 the price. I wish the Gagg oven was as large as the Miele. Likewise, I was very disappointed by the racks in the convection oven. Where everyone else has an effortless glide rack and 2 heavy duty racks that secure onto the rails so you can pull them 3/4 of the way out without them tipping, the Gagg oven doesn't have a glide rack and all their racks seem thin, flimsy, and you can't pull them out more than 1/2 way before they start tilting towards the floor. It seemed like the racks were a complete afterthought, which is inexcusable in a top of the line oven. I know with our existing oven ($1.5K Kenmore by Electrolux range), the racks slide quietly, easily, and securely, but it takes two hands and motivation to pull them out to adjust their height. From your observations, I have to conclude that the Gagg racks are thin and flimsy, with only a tiny catch at the 1/2 way point, to make them easy to adjust up and down so that you could do it with one hand without much thought. I still feel like I'd prefer that they slid out farther, but I guess I can see the advantage of having light, easy to adjust racks. So thank you for your comments, you've helped assuage some of my concerns about going with Gaggenau.

Bring your pots into a showroom to try them out. Function-wise I suspect you would be happy with any of these, but layout may be another story. I chose the Miele (not with the flex burner - was not out yet) because I wanted to easily be able to use 3 12" skillets at the same time - it's great for that, and much better than the newer model IMO or any of the other models. Many of them just have smaller hob sizes which are not as good for larger skillets (boiling water doesn't matter so much - so depends on what you are doing). Love the separate burner timers too - we use them a lot more than we thought we would for our pressure cooker, rice, pasta, drying cast iron, etc. Definitely thrilled with our choice all the way around! You probably can't make a wrong choice here though.

I second looking at the Bosch benchmark. I liked the controls on the Bosch and the Wolf. They both seemed to do a good job recognizing small pots on large burners. I don’t own either but I have tested displays. I really disliked the Thermador Freedom. Reasons are: 1) I had trouble getting controls to react when I pressed them. The gaggenau version was worse. Even the salesmen had trouble. 2) Limited to four pots/pans. Most 36 inch cooktops allow 5. 3) it is not as free as you expect. If I recall, there are limits to how many items you can put on one side. If you turn up the heat on one item, it turns down heat on the other behind your back. Other cooktops have these restrictions also, but they are explicit. Here they are implicit which makes it very confusing whenthings don’t work or you discover 15 minutes later the water you set to boil is only simmering..... I have seen reports of problems with Miele controls but I have not tested them myself. This was several years ago when the 42 inch first came out. I love the idea of a 42 inch induction cooktop but I also think it’s too risky when only one manfacuturer makes one that size. I found the Bosch flexinduction cooktop the most flexible followed by the Wolf. Caveat: I tested these out several years ago. I don’t know what improvements/changes manufacturers have made since then.

I looked at these exact units when looking to replace a bertazzoni combination unit (gas and induction) that stopped working. I agree that you can't go wrong with either -- I chose the Wolf. I've been very happy with the Wolf. That said, a couple of things to consider: I knew at the time that the Miele had additional timer functions (like being able to set a timer to turn a burner off) that the Wolf did not have -- I thought I would probably not really use such a function, but, after the fact, I think I would love to have that capability - so I might give the Miele an edge for that reason. One other thing about the Wolf that is different than the Miele -- the Miele has white markings where the burners are -- the Wolf does not. When the lights of the exhaust unit are on, the burner outline is sometimes hard to see -- this bothers my husband more than it bothers me - I like the sleeker (all black) look of the Wolf. Good luck with your decision. If you have not used induction before -- you will love it no matter which unit you choose.