I bought my wife the 5.5Qt lift bowl model number "KV25mexer5" from Costco. It has all steel gears. I got when they had basically 2 sales on it at same time. $50 off from KA and $30 off from Costco so we paid $249.00 total. For $250 it is probably the best choice you can find for a mixer, we have not had any problems with ours after 5 months of use so far. Hasn't had any problem making a 3 cup batch of bread dough using the dough hook and on speed 2 like it says to do. So far for us and especially for the price it was the best deal for our needs. It is loud but so is every other mixer in this power range. It seems rather solid, no grinding, everything works smoothly. I seriously looked at the Bosch Universal which is definitely a better mixer especially if you make a lot of large 6+ cup dough batches. But for the one I would buy (stainless bowl with blender) is $550 on sale. So more than double the price. For how much we use a mixer this Costco KA was our best deal by far, plus the added perk of if anything happens to it the first year or maybe even longer we could just take it right back for a full refund or replacement with no hassles. IF you use the hell out of a mixer though I would pay the extra and get the Bosch Universal. As far as where the KA "Stand Mixers" are made they are actually made in Greenville OH. The KA hand mixers are however made in China. But like most everything else made in China it is made there under the exact specifications that the American Company wants, unfortunately that happens to be cheap as humanly possible which is why they are made there. IF the American company stated we want the best possible mixer you can make and stated exactly what they wanted, what materials to use etc that is exactly what they would get from China. So while everyone continually puts the blame on China it really has next to nothing to do with them. It is the American company that purposely wants crap at the cheapest price possible.

For the longest time, I was convinced that halogen is the king of lighting, and LED's were 2nd-choice at best. They seem brighter when you look at them, but the light gets weaker with distance - given a 20-watt halogen bulb vs a "20-watt equivalent" 1-watt LED bulb, the halogen bulb would provide more light --at the work surface--. However, it looks like the LED technology is catching up fast. The range hood I got has 4 1-watt LED bulbs, and they provide more than enough light for the cooktop. There was a choice between this model with LED's vs halogens, and even though it was a bit more expensive, I'm glad I went with it. It's a pure white light, which matches the rest of the kitchen lighting, and it's completely cool - I can leave the hood on for hours, and the temperature of the bulb never changes. Also, in the long term, the energy $avings and the longer bulb lifetime offset the initially higher cost of LED's. So, former skeptic convinced, my vote is for LED's over halogens.

On the rangehoods, what is it that has you stumped? I assume that you've searched here and read the threads on the pros and cons of OTR units. (If not, search on "OTR"). Are you thinking you will need to match the brand of stove you choose? Strikes me that matching would be a concern only with that GE slide-in range's retro-Jetsons cat-eye styling on the oven door glass. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about "matching" the OTR brand to the stove. You might want to consider the LG model with the "extenda vent" that slides out towards the front stove burners. (Search on "OTR + LG" to find threads discussing this unit. Can you be more specific about why you like the slide-in stoves? Do you just like the look better than that of free-standing stoves? Maybe you are you thinking that the more-open cooktop means putting using large pans together? Maybe something else? Will the stove butt tightly up against the backsplash? Will you have tile or granite behind the stove for a backsplash? Some slide-ins are designed so that their tops do not fit flush with a wall in order to allow you to fit a piece of countertop across the back, giving a more built-in look and preventing "stuff" from falling behind the stove. Some GE slide-in stoves (and I do not know if the GE Profile P2S975SEPSS is one of them) have a flat back so that the cooktop goes flat against the wall behind the stove. Except that it is not uncommon for kitchen walls to be a little bowed in older houses, so you may still have a gap in that event. For those kinds of situations, you may want to check on getting a back-guard acessory. These usually are a thin backsplash often about 4" tall and 1" thick and serve to keep things from spilling or rolling off the cooktop into the space behind the stove. Often, they extend the oven venting above the level of the burners so that your oven exhaust/convection is not blowing the flames of the rear burners. If memory serves, the GE profiels ones run around $100. (The GE Cafe ones are something like $300). The Bosch stove looks like a nice unit except for the ceramic-glass on the cooktop surface. It may look spiffy in the store but, to me, it seems as though cleaning would be as problemmatic as with a glasstop-radiant-electric cooktop. You have to immediately wipe-up any sugary spills (those etch the glass surface) and will have the same razor-blade scraping and cerama-brite work. Which $1k Frigidaire are you looking at? When I was shopping for a stove a couple of months ago, I looked at the FGGF3056KF which seemed like a lot of stove for the money. As I recall, it had two big burners (17k-btu-hr and 15k-btu-hr), a griddle burner and griddle top, and claimed to have third-element convection in the oven (so-called "true-convection.") Apparently, there is a 120v oven heating element wrapping the convection fan. (Usually, you need an electric oven to get that feature). My experience with third element convection (on my previous stove, a GE dual fuel) was that the third element was handy if you regularly bake multiple sheets of cookies but, judging from my experience with convection in my present gas stove, does not make a noticeable difference over a plain convection fan for other kinds of baking and roasting. (Some personal preferences led me to pass on this stove. While I recognize the advantages of a black cooktop, I just do not care for the look. I wanted my biggest burners in front but this has one right front and one at left rear. I do not care for griddle burners in the middle of my cooktop nor the smaller-sized griddles that come with these stoves.)

Bobby if you still have the KA classic you were talking about,keep it! Maybe someday you will run across some one that can repair it. Or if it were me I would at least keep the attachments. I had an old (Hobart made) KA that I gave to my niece in South Carolina several years ago. I told her to bring it back on her next trip home. I have a 6 quart pro sitting in my garage colecting dust I will give her in exchange. KA has a great return/repair policy. 9 times out of 10 if someone sends a mixer back for repair it is completly replaced with another mixer. For the person asking about the Hobart N-50 mixer. KA does NOT make them anymore. Kitchen Aid has not made Hobart mixers since the mid 80's. Thats when Dart Kraft bought the KA division from Hobart. Later to be bought out by Whirlpool. Whirlpool now also owns JenAir, and Maytag in addition to KA.