Is this your forever house? If so, I'd ditch it. I wouldn't want to have a WD that might mess up the front of the cabs due to steam. If you think you might not live there forever, I'd install it and be careful about the times the steam might affect the cab fronts. FWIW my WD never produced much steam. Frankly, it really was so low of a temp that I barely felt it even on the outside when coming near it. I had inset cabs and a fully integrated custom panel on it though. Not sure if that made a difference. I did love that WD! (We have moved and I miss it!)

I don't understand the justifications for locating the warmer at the bottom either, but if I have to venture a guest: A self cleaning oven gets as hot as 900F. At that temperature, it is very difficult to insulate effectively. If you locate the warming drawer on top of this 900F oven, it will take some engineering to maintain the warmer at a steady low temperature. At 900 degrees F, the air will be complete dehydrated. If the warmer is located right on top, the air around the warmer will be very dry and food will be dried out faster. If the hot oven is located at the bottom of all components, all control wiring, temperature sensors, sensitive digital electronic boards, displays, etc. above the oven will be subjected to very hot air. At 900 degrees F, hot air rises. dcarch

Mine is panelled and the vent (moist/dry) works fine. There are slits in the bottom of the bit of metal that folds from from the interior wall, between that and the panel. That's where the moisture vents. It's not much moisture when you're venting something you're trying to keep crispy. It's not perfect. Something inherently moist, like waffles, won't be as crispy outside as if they were right out of the waffle iron, but should be somewhat crisper than without the vent. With the vent you can recrisp crackers. ;) No problems, but I don't have a damp kitchen. It doesn't get hot enough to affect the panel. Mine are solid bamboo, which is a kind of plywood. If you have veneer on MDF or something like that, there might be a greater issue. There are ovens with temperatures which will go down as far as a warming drawer. Traditionally, 225-250 was the "keep warm" setting and that would continue to cook the food. The temperature they have for rising bread dough is 90-100 degrees, the point being to "prove" the yeast (make it rise) rather than kill it. :) Some jump from there to 250. Others have dehydrate and warming settings between 100-250. Those are the ones you can use the same way you would a warming drawer. If you had full extension racks you could even dish up from it. Plate warming can be done on the dough mode. Keep it under 100 degrees for pleasantly warm. That also shouldn't discolor your metalics, but test it first. Safe warming settings for food range from 140-240 depending on the type of food, quantity, etc. That said, Jews have been keeping food warm for Sabbath at temperatures below 120 degrees, lest it be hot enough to cook (the test is that it be less than the temperature that causes you to withdraw your hand), for centuries without ill consequences. The trick to that is to have something that is thoroughly cooked enough to have no chance of still having bacteria. If you have a medium rare roast, which is heavy and dense and isn't cooked to a faretheewell, you'll want to use a higher temperature. The government recommends temperatures that are too high, and will cause further cooking, but they have to err on the side of safety. In reality, if you have good quality food and cook it to safe temperatures to begin with, you don't need to go that far and can use a temperature that will hold the heat without further cooking. Most warming drawers have settings of low/medium/high, sometimes with the additions of "proof" or plate warming. You can usually find out what the total range is, but the temperatures aren't exact. They'll give you a guide to go with it from which you can find something that is most like the thing you want to keep warm. There are some more precise warming drawers, but it's unnecessary. The whole point is that it's just a warm box. Very simple. Very reliable. Very easy to use. Some also have an automatic off after four hours, which you can disable for a day in dehydrate mode, and for a few days in Sabbath mode (for said Jews). That's overly complex, in my opinion, but people have been known to forget it for a week, and they probably need it. My kitchen isn't that cold, so I turn mine off when people go for seconds. It stays warm enough until I can put the food away. If you don't have that temperature range, you can still keep things warm in an oven for awhile. Just warm the oven up to its lowest temperature and turn it off. Even the nervous nellies admit that you can safely keep food in a warming drawer for four hours, however, and your regular oven without a warming setting is probably going to get too cool in that kind of time if it's not on, and you don't want to be shocking you food by raising and lowering and raising the temperature again. The KitchenAid (and Jenn-Air) warming drawers have slow cook settings whereas other warming drawers specifically caution against it. There's no reason for that, however. Having looked at them, I infer that what the low/high slow cook switch gives you is specific target temperatures. Low is equivalent to an old fashioned crock pot, which took 8-10 hours to cook, and high is the equivalent of the current models, which take about five hours to cook. If you use an oven thermometer to figure out the temperatures on your dial, you can do this without the special setting. People do it all the time. :)

I use my warming drawer about once a week and I'm glad to have it. It comes in especially handy when we have a sit-down dinner for a group that includes picky eaters and the regular folks, LOL. I usually prepare something simple for the picky eaters and stick it in the warming drawer while I'm cooking the rest of the meal. It works great and the food does not dry out, which thank goodness because then what would the picky eaters eat! I have two ovens and haven't had many occasions when I need to use both, plus the warming drawer, but there have been some (we've been in the kitchen for 3 years now). Mostly I like the drawer because it doesn't heat up the kitchen, it doesn't use a gigantic amount of electricity like heating a whole oven, and the food stays moist. My one complaint about the drawer is that it is low. Not that I have a problem bending down, but the first time I used it I left it open while moving dishes from the drawer to the table, and the dog thought the food was hers since it was "on the floor." LOL. I haven't bought any inserts and don't use the wire rack that came with it. I just put my regular serving dishes in there. I have gotten to the point recently where I ran out of space and will probably end up using the wire rack one of these days.