Like you, we also thought people who designed the Gagg oven as compared to Miele, didn't spend a couple of minutes doing usability testing. It is pretty obscure and terse with symbols and little in English. After reading the manual online, turns out it is not too complicate as after all, it is just an oven :). You select the mode, then temp and all is well. Once there, the Gagg has side openning door which we really like. My wife hates lifting heaving things over the oven door. In addition, the rotisserie on the Gagg is much heavier duty, capable of 13+ pounds where as the Miele is split over two smllaer units with each holding half as much. So given above, we decided to go with Gagg even though we would have loved to have the Miele interface on it. We figured that we learn to use the interface whereas nothing makes up for the other two features above. The other factor was that we like the Gagg steam oven better as it is also a normal convection oven. The Miele is pure steam which to us, is not necessary as we have other ways to doing just pure steam. By going with Gagg oven, we can have its combi steam match it. For the third unit, we are just getting a GE microwave. We use the micro a lot and wanted it to work well and not have some kind of compromise because it is a speed oven. For example, we like the left openning door on that too, as opposed to some speed ovens where the door opens down. Miele speed oven seemed nice but there were too many complaints about the expensive glass tray, and difficulty to keep it clean. As to having 4 ovens, we didn't see the need as we have a wood fired Pizza oven. This way, we have one of everything :p. Have you considered one of these? They are expensive and take up a lot of space but if you want Pizza done right and in 2 minutes per, nothing else replaces it. And they also are wonderful for grilling over coals with a ton of space, no worries as far as clean up ("self cleaning" at 1000 degrees), and you can do ton of other things from baking bread to roasting items.

You are comparing apples to oranges... First figure out whether you want speed, steam, or combi steam. I think that most people are served better by combi steam rather than steam only just because they're so much more flexible. Then, look at brands. I know nothing about Miele or Wolf steam ovens, but many people here own them so they will probably share their experiences. I do know though that Gagg is the best of those, because you can get it in a plumbed version, you can control the humidity (not just steam on/off) and it has some other nifty features like the ability to condense the steam before you open the oven so you don't get a blast in your face, and a button to add bursts of steam manually during cooking. If you decide on a Gagg, look for floor models or Ebay/Craigslist deals to help alleviate the sticker shock. There are tons of deals to be found on those ovens. As for functioning as a microwave, the steam ovens will not replace a microwave exactly but they may take over many of your microwave's duties. They are excellent for reheating things, and although they take longer than a microwave, the results are much better. The Advantium, as well as most speed ovens, can function as a microwave alone. If you only use the microwave occasionally like me to heat up things, a speed oven alone would be fine. However if you use the microwave frequently you should probably get another microwave to supplement the speed oven for two reasons. One, while you are using the oven to cook the microwave will be out of service. Two, to preserve the life of the magnetron.

Yes. foodie3...thank you SO much for sharing that information. We have an older BS-280 model that we bought, installed and were trying in vain to calibrate. The "cal" notation would just not go away. That is, until we followed your advice. I had previously called Gaggenau here in CA, who did not know that and simply said increasing the temp from 210º to 215ºF should do the trick, which it did not. Interesting that this info is nowhere else to be found online when I searched this issue. Perhaps the newer models have alleviated the translation issue. I did turn off the oven manually after the "cal" disappeared since the oven didn't turn off automatically after 15 minutes.

I am not an expert of kitchen appliances, but know Miele is working hard to be the innovator in the field by providing excellence in kitchen appliances in all they offer. However, I have seen professional chefs, and a Master chef, in demo kitchens that worked their magic on old electric coil cook tops. I think there comes a time when you purchase what you love to work with (gas or induction) in the kitchen and leave the rest to honing the skill. Don't over think it.