Another point to keep in mind re: painted cabinets; be sure to specify to your KD that you want minimal visible cracks where two boxes meet (aka seams). Mine went in and out and I had to ask that the installer use more screws to tighten the seam and make it disappear as much as possible. Also, be very clear about wanting invisible seams where a side panel might be put (another unattractive result in my $90K cabinets!)

Well, to put another opinion in to the mix---I don't know of any granite fabricators in my neck of the woods who will do a cutout on an already existing installed countertop that another fabricator has installed. Yes, you can get them to come out and drill holes, or modify cutouts in place, but there will be NO WARRANTY about the top cracking and you would have to sign a waiver acknowledging that fact. In an existing situation, the house can have settled, the cabinets settled, and there can be invisible stresses on the granite top if that's happened, and then you apply cutting tools to the situation and you have a stress crack manifest itself. Not to mention, your "pinch hitters" didn't help select the slab or layout, and the original fabricator may have installed a piece with a fissure there that just naturally broke when the larger cutout stresses were applied with the bigger and heavier cooktop. There are a lot of reasons granite cracks, but in an existing situation that is being modified, you really can't hold the fabricators responsible. Now, they should have made you aware of this on the front end, had you sign a waiver, and shown you the issue and let you sign off on the repair efforts before they left. I'm not defending that behavior at all.

I am a fabricator. If the fissure or crack proceeds down the edge of the material and it can be snagged by a fingernail then I'd call it a crack. At a minimum I'd expect a warranty from the fabricator against it becoming worse over time. A skilled fabricator or stone repair person could probably make it much less prominent. Iif it's an overhang it should be rodded which you could see by inspecting the underside of the exposed area. Unless he had no other option a good fabricator would've avoided such a prominent negative feature. In my shop at a minimum we would have shown the customer that feature before sawing the slab.

For those who asked, my granite was called "New Golden Beach". After choosing it I googled the name hoping to see images of it used on finished countertops. What I kept getting were pictures of "Golden Beach" which is far more golden and tan than mine. Mine's a cream base with taupe striations and flecks of black. It is much cooler in tone than Golden Beach which to me has a yellowy cast. When I went looking for granite at the huge stone yard outside of Boston that my KD recommended, I was surprised to find very few slabs in white & cream that had muted patterning. They told me that those like mine flew out the door as soon as they got them in. They said it was because most who wanted that look were going with marble or quartzite, of which they had plenty. They tried to persuade me to consider one of those but I said I didn't know anyone personally who'd had a great track record using it the way I knew it would be used in my kitchen. The rep said that was the reason the light granite stones were taken so quickly. Customers like me who wanted the light stone but felt more secure with granite chose them over marble and quartz/quartzite. I selected my stone 2 years ago. Since then I have seen a number of people here install quartzite and/or quartz countertops and give positive reviews about their performance with regard to being stain and heat resistant. I still think granite was the best look for me in this kitchen, and it sure has stood up to all manner of things like lemon juice, red wine, ketchup, blueberry jam, etc, that might have been bad news with other more porous stones and choices. That said, I think there's a lot to choose from other than granite & laminate.