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.

I wanted to contribute my experience- we got the capital culinarian all gas 48" w/ the griddle (so we have 6 burners) within the past year and I have been using it for a few months. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our decision!! I too did a lot of research and did not read many negative reviews about it- and they are very well built, pretty, and simple design-wise (my husband is a contractor and thought they were most similar to the commercial ranges he has worked on, i.e. if something breaks it would be easy to fix). I probably wouldn't need 6 burners just for cooking- but it is nice to have. I also do a lot of canning/preserving, and do use 6 burners at the same time (simmer for warming lids, canning pot, pot for extra hot water, pot w/ stuff to be canned, pot w/ syrup for the stuff to be canned, one pot w/ dinner cooking). My husband loves the griddle- very easy to make breakfasts, hot sandwiches, etc. You could always do 4 burners and a grill/griddle as an option if you don't can/need 6 burners. Also, I really enjoy the big oven on the 48" (not sure how this compares in size to the 36" since the 48" has a large and small oven and the 36" one large oven). It can fit 9x13" pans side by side, and cookie sheets. The roll out racks aren't as smooth as some of the other brands we looked at (we liked the thermador racks the best- very smooth) but they work pretty well. Also, I haven't had any problems w/ the baking heat/evenness, and our oven is gas (which I think is typically worse than electric ovens?). I haven't baked bread yet- but have done a lot of other foods (cookies, casseroles, etc.). So if it were me I would definitely do the 36" over the 30" :-) It sounds like you would use it w/ all the cooking that you do. If you have any questions about mine please let me know :-)

I would start with what you're accustomed to cooking on/with now: Have you been cooking on a 30 and always wished you had a larger cooking surface? Have you been using a 36 all these years and find you actually don't use one or two burners (or whatever the differential between 30 and 36 is)? If you've been using a 36, is it a good tradeoff to lose a burner for the sake of gaining countertop space and the spice rack? Good advice. I cook every day. Ambitious recipes, large quantities, lots of baking, the whole 9 yards, but it's quite rare that I say to myself, "I wish I had a larger cooking space and/or a second oven". It's just not something that I really need or want. However, I own more kitchen goods than a Williams Sonoma store, so that bit of extra storage space would be more than welcome. I wouldn't go with a spice pull-out though. You don't want to store spices by the heat of the stove, and those things are fairly expensive for the small storage they provide -- I vote for a slightly wider upper instead.

I had decided on the Bosch, but a local distributor had a close out on the Profile at half price. I jumped on it and bought that and saved about $1200. They didn’t have a floor model so I wasn’t able to see it. What I like: there is a lip on both sides of the top that sit on the countertop like a cooktop would. It’s a sleek look and there’s no gap for foood to fall into. The range is very pretty. The control panel is in a very nice position at the top front, and the controls are very easy to use. What I don’t like: although the brochure says the broiler is 8 pass, it’s not really. And that I am really unhappy about. I specifically wanted an 8 pass broiler. It’s some kind of mickey mouse design that they can call 8 pass but it’s not. So, bottom line, I should have bought the Bosch.