Ladybug: I'm not sure if this helps or not, but I'm in a very similar situation as you. I have done a lot of research on 48" ranges and am keen on having high BTU and a lot of interior space. After having a long conversation with Trevor (from Eurostoves), I actually went to the Capital factory and was very impressed. In fact, it's the only appliance I have decided on! So, if they can assure you that you can get easy service relatively close by, I'd go with the Culinarian. Hope that helps!

I purchased a wolf dual fuel 48" 9 months ago and after several service calls, Wolf did a buy back on the range. It was kind of strange, I would have been ok with another range but they did not want to switch it out. They were very nice, tried to service it but never really looks at the internals, instead would send a chef out here to cook in it and troubleshoot it. My issue was mainly the convection. Cook on one rack, no issues, cook on all of them like cookies and extremely uneven cooking from top to bottom and back to front. Not satisfied. Hated the lack of rolling racks, I find the racks hard to pull out. Had the double griddle. Fantastic to cook on but the grease catcher does not catch grease, instead it fills up, overflows underneath and makes quite the mess, even when the catcher is not full....they even mentioned that it is a design flaw. The actual service help after was good in most respects, would I buy another wolf? maybe some day, but not that range for sure. Also, took forever to heat up and boiling a pot of water took too long for such a beautiful unit. I am now purchasing a capital culinarian...hoping for much better results.....

Someone else here reported that they spoke to Capital, the CEO I think, and the range tops are available now. You asked about getting a Performance vs the Precision. Performance is less money, but has lower BTUs (750-15000 BTUs vs 19000 BTU "Power-flo burners") and I believe they put a bit sleeker styling on the Precision....New knob style, etc. I'm wondering why you think DCS's cooktop is 'lame' compared to Monogram's... I just looked at Monogram's site and it says the 36" cooktop has one at 15K BTU, two at 12K, and two at 10K. Seems like having one at 17.5K and four at 11K would be about the same, except for the higher fire power on the big burner? (For me the Monogram would be even worse, since I have propane and then their output offering is 1@ 15K and 4@ 9.1K) I'm still shopping for a rangetop myself, so appreciate hearing the thought processes of others when they make their choice. My current top 3 are BlueStar, Wolf, and Capital Precision. Have you checked into BlueStar? Their 36" drop-in cooktops give you 2@ 22K BTUs, 2@ 15K, and one 'simmer' burner, which on the ranges is 9 or 10K BTUs. Here is a link that might be useful: BlueStar drop in cooktop

I just purchased a 30" Wolf DF. I also strongly considered the DCS and Monogram ranges. DCS had the 5 burners but I didn't care for the oven racks. Monogram had the full extension racks and grate that flipped for wok cooking. A floor model slipped through my fingers so that made paying full price distasteful. Wolf had the tank like build and 4 well spaced burners. I got a full extension rack when I attended a Wolf demo evening with gourmet meal (excellent food and informative evening). The bottom rack is somewhat extension since it sits on the oven door by design. Wok grid can be purchased later. As OP points out it was just slightly more than the DCS. Wolf is locally made and supported so it won out. Not delivered or installed yet by way of full disclosure. It was a tough choice almost a year in the making.