There are several threads on this topic on the Appliances forum. You will find proponents of both open and closed.

Until recently there were only Wolf and then Blue Star who offered open burners. Now Capital has brought one to market (the Culinarian) and soon American Range will also be marketing one. They seem to be gaining in popularity.

I would encourage you to look beyond Wolf if you might be interested in an open burner range. Rather than repeating here what the advantages and disadvantages of the different burners are (since these have been described elsewhere) I would encourage you to read and also to go see the ranges for yourself.

I bought sealed. Wish I would have bought open. The flame is never "right". But I can still cook on it; much better than electric which I never mastered.

After using an O'Keefe & Merritt stove with open burners for 26 years there was no way I wanted sealed. I'm very happy with my Wolf, but will say that the heavy grates are a bit of a pain to clean.

We have the Wolf with open burners...love it. Cleaning is a breeze, I just lift out the entire base pan from each side, clean it in the sink and replace.

I've had closed burners before, and hate how you can never get them quite clean around the base of the burners.

The advantage of the Wolf is that you can replace the base pans at some future date if they are impossibly dirty or burned. But my experience is that they clean up beautifully (I spray them first with blue windex to cut the grease, then use either Dawn or Barkeeper's Friend depending on how much baked on stuff is there.)

I can't speak for the other supposed advantage of oxygen/air flow in open vs closed burners.

And as for the heavy grates of the Wolf...love them. I don't even clean them. I let them get dirty, and rotate them thru the stove so they are all used evenly. The heat from cooking normally burns off most of the grease.

I second Sayde's suggestion of doing some research on the Appliance Forum. You'll find the pros and cons of each.

I'm doing an open burner Capitalarian after doing my research over there and talking to Rhome about her Wolf.

This is probably a stupid question, but do all Wolf gas ranges have open burners? If not, is there any easy way to find out which models do have open burners?

Wolf makes a closed-burner dual fuel range, and an open burner all gas range. But the Blue Star and Capital open burner ranges are quite different from the Wolf (and from each other)-- suggest you check them out. There might still be some Youtube videos out there comparing the Wolf and the Blue Star.

The Capital and Blue Star are more "open" than the the Wolf -- more air flow, and any spills fall through to a tray below. People who like open burners tend to like this set up. People who like closed burners think it is easier to clean up spills that collect on the surface right around the ring of flame.

After seeing the options I chose Blue Star and love it so far.

The new American Range that is coming soon looks quite interesting.

I bought a second-hand open burner Viking rangetop - love it. So much easier to clean than closed. I don't believe Viking makes an open burner any more though.

kaysd - AJmadison.com is where I go to figure out that sort of stuff. Once you get into ranges or rangetops, there is an option (among many others) to view only open (or sealed) burners. You can then also narrow down by brand.

I left behind an open burner Viking since the newer house alredy had a Viking, though it is a sealed burner unit.

The sealed burners require all cleaning to be dine in place on tp of the stove.

The Viking open burner stove is easily taken apart into strips for each pair of burners 9and a filler if required).
These pieces (and the burner bowls) can easily be taken over to the sink for cleaning, and the drip tray can be removed and placed in the sink for cleaning also.

Anything that has dripped on the burner supports is easily cleaned before taking out the drip tray.

The sealed burner requires much more effort and a lot of paper towels to clean in place (and spray cleaners for cooked on stuff).

Thanks for the tips -will do more research in the appliances forum

I'm a big fan of my open burners, but it's not a big deal in the following regard: 90% of what most people do on a range can be done with a decent (and not necessarily top of the line) version of a sealed or open burner. That's not to say that the differences cannot be striking or matter to you and how you cook, but it's worth keeping a sort of functional baseline in mind as you sort these things out.

WRT which part of the pan receives direct heat -- that's partly a question of the shape of the individual burners. BlueStar (open) has an inner ring and radial extensions -- like rays off a cartoon version of the sun -- so that there's direct flame applied to a significant portion of the bottom of the pan. Thermador (sealed) has a "star" shaped burner, and several mfgs use dual rings. Most of these things can be demoed, if you have the right kind of shop nearby (or a friend with one of the things that interests you). BTW -- the wolf web site should have pictures and features for both their open burners (their version of open) and closed burner models, and I reckon a dealer ought to have a sample of each style, even if it doesn't have precisely the model you're looking at.

I did not buy open burners for ease of cleaning, but they have turned out to be pretty darn easy to clean. There are 2 stainless drip trays that slide out very easily -- not visible if you're just sitting in the kitchen or even standing at the range. On a daily basis, it's mostly a swipe of a dish towel or paper towel. If there's more of a mess, it's easy enough to pull an individual grate and bowl at a time and take a brush and hot water to them at the sink, although they are on the heavy side.

As others have posted -- plenty of posts on these questions on the appliance board.