Well, for what it's worth, I would definately go with the gas. I have had both and currently have the Viking induction (no gas available in current house)while I like the induction a bazillion times better than the old electric cooktop I had it still isn't the same as a gas flame. It does have the benefits of being very responsive like gas and does boil water even faster than gas. However there are certain things I miss like using my double grill pan. It just doesn't heat the whole thing, only where the burners are and putting my roasting pan right on the stove to make gravy instead of transferring the juices to another pan (roasting pan not induction cabable) and using open flame to flambe or burn off alcohol when cooking. Also you have to take into consideration the expense of new cookware if your old stuff isn't induction capable. I have had no problems with my Viking induction at all so can't help with warranty question. hope that helps.

On the E'lux units I'm familiar with, one turns on a hob by pushing on an icon at the hob control group. At that point the hob is ready to take direction, and one either pushes the up arrow or down arrow. If up, one gets Power Boost (unless its hob pair is already above the threshold of allowing Power Boost, in which case one gets the highest allowable number). If down, one gets level 1 minimum hob output. It takes only a few seconds going down from P or up from 1 to get to the desired setting. For most cooking, one would tend to set the level high to start, if only to overcome the thermal mass of the pan, and then turn it down progressively as it heats up. The time to setting compared with that for designs that require one to select a hob for a single setting control to accept the power setting is not likely to be much different. In the particular case of incipient boil-overs, which are easy to have occur with induction, individual hob controls are in my view more intuitive to react to in order to lower the power quickly. kas

You have a lot of decisions to make. :-)). Just some brief comments....except on the griddle. Gas Burners What works well for one person might not work at all for another. What type of cooking do you do? Any high heat applications like stir frying? What type of cookware do you use? This could have an impact on the type of burners you choose. There are big differences between Wolf/Monogram’s dual stacked, capped, sealed ring burners and BlueStar uncapped, open tray star burners. The size of your range may be dictated by the size of your kitchen. Search some of the posts by Kasecki to find out about ventilation. I cook for up to 60 and I have a 36” range, 6 burners, plus a couple of induction plates, an Instapot, a small Nesco cooker, a couple of hot plates and I simmer in my oven a lot of the time. I have the Wolf DF which has the burners that are on the Wolf AG range now. I would definitely consider the BS star on my next range. Griddles You can get a griddle in three ways. They each have benefits and vary tremendously in the ways they are made. Built in Griddles These mostly have the benefit of a thermostat so that you can turn the knob on to certain setting and you will get an easily reproducible temperature. There will be a constant variation in that temperature as the burner cycles, maybe +/- 25°F-50°F depending on the thermostat. It is very difficult to find out what those numbers are. They also have a little more stability, compared to an add on griddle. There are a lot of differences in how these are put together. Cooking surface- Wolf and BlueStar have rolled steel, but BS’s is half the thickness of Wolf. This seasons like cast iron and becomes nonstick If you let it. Wolf being thicker will heat more evenly over time but takes longer to heat and turn up or down. Steel heats unevenly so you have areas that are hotter. Wolf refers to this in their manual. Monogram has an aluminum base clad in stainless. The aluminum is to provide more even heating as it has much better heat transfer properties but there was a thread not long ago about how difficult the stainless on it was to clean. There are some griddles that are all aluminum because it conducts heat so well. Some have a surface that is removable to clean. Some have a chromium finish which is sold as making it easy to clean but reviews say it is hard to clean. Heat source- Blue star gas a burner like this. Wolf attempts to have a heat source that provides more even heat so they use an infrared burner. Some built ins use an electric element with an aluminum plate, which might provide the most even heating depending on the thickness of the aluminum. Look at the amount of BTUs. Wolf is about 15K but a few go up to 18K. Add on or overlay griddles You can buy these from a restaurant supply very inexpensively. Some of the advantages with an overlay. -flexibility of using the griddle or the burner. You can take the griddle off to clean and put it away if you want to. -You can get whatever metal you want. Steel will season easily but tend to have zones of hotter and cooler temperatures. Some people like that because they can cook on one part and hold on another. You can adjust the front and back burners to different levels of heat. There are aluminum griddles and some have a nonstick surface. These are great when you need even heat like for grilled sandwiches or pancakes There are 2 burner and 4 burner sizes or you can just use 2 -2 burner griddles if you need more space. I have the bare aluminum griddles because I tend to grill a lot of sandwiches. They do season over time If you don’t scrub the seasoning off. I also have a nonstick one. I thought I would buy a steel 4 burner but when I got to the store, I could hardly lift it. The aluminum weighs less. These se are my faves and I have the 15”x23” in bare aluminum. You can transfer these to the oven too. http://royalindustriesinc.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_22_48 A lot of posters like these too. https://www.dvorsons.com/ChefKing/Griddles.htm You can position the griddle wherever you want to on the range top. Sometimes I turn it so it covers two burners on the front. -The 2 burner overlays like the Royal Industries and Chef King in the 15”x23” have almost 50% more cooking area than the 2 burner built ins. It is easy to calculate the usable area of each. -You can have a lot more heat. Even with Wolf’s 15K BTU burners, which is on the low end, you would have 30K BTUs compared to the usual 15-18K. It can go up from there. There is yet another choice, the countertop Griddle. These are usually thermostatically controlled and work pretty well but vary in quality. Of course they are not as “cheffy”. They are usually made of aluminum though. These comments were made above. ”Burner top griddles are fine for some people but they are not even heat across the surface” This depends a lot on what metal the griddle is made of and it’s thickness. Rather than whether it is built in or not. Any that are aluminum have better heat transfer properties of the cooking surface. As mentioned above, you have your choice with an add on. “ nor do they maintain even heat over time.” If you consider how the heat is applied to the griddle, the overlay receives a constant inflow and has a pretty constant loss of heat once you adjust it and it comes to equilibrium. The thermostatically controlled griddle has a swing like an oven, so I would disagree with that. You do have to adjust the heat in the beginning but it is like cooking with a pan. Not sure if it is even significant in cooking unless you had too big of a swing with the thermostat. I’ve seen some electric skillets like that. Steam oven- Do you mean a dedicated steam oven or a combi oven that fully functions as a convection oven and also as a steam oven? Have you looked at Miele? We have a poste here “M” that can speak to the combi ovens, also called CSOs(Convection Steam Ovens) Wall oven- This is a whole discussion by itself. What are you thinking here? Gas range oven- If you do cook for large groups, it would be a good thing to have an oven that holds a full sized commercial tray. Even if you don’t use the full size, it is nice to be able to use twok half sheets side by side.. Wolf is not big enough for that even in the 36” oven. BS, Monogram and some others are.

Since folks occasionally come across this thread, perhaps it's time for a 2023 update. Bosch Bosch has released a new "Pro" model in their 800 series line. The 800 Series Induction freestanding range (model number HIS8055U has front control knobs, but a rather small oven at 3.9 CuFt. While it does check my boxes for individual burner controls, preferably knobs, there's a few things to note: Oven size is rather small No bridge burner While Bosch themselves don't list out the wattage of each burner, it is a 40A circuit, so it may be a little less power than the Miele, Wolf or Fulgor Milano And this is a rumor and something I heard on a few appliance review videos, but unable to confirm: This product is the Smeg cooktop. If so, the burner power would be two burners at 3,000 W and two at 1,400 W. Which is indeed quite a bit less than the other top choices I had listed in the original post So overall it may look great, has front control knobs for each individual burner, but it may not have the power and/or reliability of the Bosch Benchmark slide-in induction range. Thermador They have been known for their "Freedom Induction Cooktop", especially in the 36" version. There are no truly dedicated burners, but a large "flex zone" on both the left and right side that are each powered by two separate inductors. You can use each zone as two individual burners or as one large cooking zone. You can slide pots and pans around over the entire zone and with several different programming options, it will remember your setting and transfer it to wherever you move the pan. Or you can set it to be in incrementally lower power settings front to back. So it can be on 9 at the front, 7 in the middle, 5 further back, etc.... Sear and just slide it back to lower the power setting. Extremely high tech and super impressive. So now Thermador has released this in a 30" induction range. The Thermador Liberty® Induction Professional Range 30'' Pro Harmony® (that's a mouthful) with model number PRI30LBHU is a sleek looking cooking range, with an impressively capable induction cooktop. What stood out to me: The Liberty or Freedom cooktop is phenomenally flexible, powerful and high tech. A little overwhelmingly high-tech even However, in a 30" range, it seems a little small. While the entire glass cooktop is 22 1/2" deep, a large section in the front is taken up by the controls. Based on some initial measurements, that means the flex zone cooking surface is only about 15 1/2" to 16" deep. I have to find one in person to confirm that, but based on images and scale, that's it came out to. Sounds awfully small to me And, for me, the biggest sticking point is the lack of individual burner control. On the 36" version there is a very sleek looking control panel that is very intuitive with a slider control. On the 30" version, it looks very much like the Bosch controls and hence not my personal favorite. But it may work for you All that being said, it's probably been the most exciting release in the 30" induction range world for the last year. The images attached are the size of the Thermador cooktop and the comparison the controls of the 30" Liberty range vs the 36" Freedom cooktop Other updates Dacor Has completely abandoned and discontinued the 30" induction range Fisher & Paykel Someone did point out that DCS sold the household appliance brand F&P to Haier. Which is a Chinese conglomerate that owns GE Appliances, Hoover, Hotpoint, Sanyo and a few other brands. I have not necessarily heard anything bad about F&P and know several folks have purchased F&P 9 series Classic models since they come in different colors to match your desired interior Fulgor Milano They seem to be more prevalent now than they were when I wrote the original article. And many people are quite impressed and happy with the quality. One re-occurring comment I see is that the oven seems to indicate that the preheat is complete, while the temperature is not fully distributed throughout the oven cavity yet. Especially in simple bake mode. The workaround seems to be to preheat with a convection mode to ensure the entire oven cavity is heated through and then switch back to the preferred baking mode. A bit of a workaround, but it that's the only complaint, I think it remains a strong top contender GE Cafe and Profile No major updates Miele Likewise no significant updates. The induction range is still on version 3 and remains equally impressive as it was when I posted the original article. Wolf Only has released a style update with a different oven door handle. Wait times seem to have gone down, but no feature or other technical updates As far as I know those are the updates I was able to find, so I hope this helps those continuing to shop around