While I might be more wordy, JuneKnow has stated the essence of reality for good cooking plume capture and containment. There are several threads here addressing the difficulties of side draft vents deviating hot cooking plumes to their entry apertures. Fluid dynamics stands in the path of side draft and down draft schemes working well for any hot cooking activity.

I won't repeat the content of those threads here, but will jump to the bottom line, given that sight lines are in the aesthetics category: You can have only two of performance, aesthetics, and affordability; else trades among these categories are needed.

If you want a good sight line and a 36-inch hood separation from the cooktop is too low, then you have to go larger in hood entry aperture, higher in CFM, higher in MUA CFM, and bear all those increased costs. As the largish Wolf Pro Island hoods are best at heights not exceeding 36 inches, custom hoods from such as ModernAire will be needed if going to, say, 48 inches above (7 ft from the floor).

Some of those telescoping models don't rise very high. Maybe ones that do such as those from Best, Faber, and others would work better.

I had telescopic ones at one point and hate them.

What, exactly, did you hate about them?

How about a cool-looking cylindrical hood like this Futuro Futuro IS14 JUPITER hood.

Or maybe switch out the gas range for an induction range that would emit less stuff into the air (would be safer for somebody standing behind the range) and use a hood that's mounted in the ceiling.

@kaseki "You can have only two of performance, aesthetics, and affordability; else trades among these categories are needed." That's an excellent guideline and something I can relate to as a former project manager in another industry. Thank you..I will keep that in mind as this is part of a bigger reno.

@Sammy At low speeds, the fan in it doesn't work fast enough before stuff rises to top and at higher speeds, it put out the flame. I cook with a lot of spices.. It just never worked well.

@wdccruise Thank you for your recommendation. If by induction range you mean electric cooktop, that's not something I desire. I love cooking on Gas. One of the reasons I bought this house.

WDCcruise's idea of finding a hood that doesn't scream HOOD is good. Futuro-Futuro has other cool hoods worth checking out--some are kind of lamp-like and not too different from trendy pendant island lighting. I don't know if they are actually any good but their whole line is worth checking out for "different" hoods.

Miele used to have a ceiling-mount island hood that raised and lowered on demand. I wonder if that's still a thing.

"If by induction range you mean electric cooktop..."

Induction is electric but generates no heat itself. It's different than the older radiant (or smoothtop). Like gas, changes to the "temperature" setting are instantaneous.

R J: Induction is electric, but it is different from hot electric coils. The heat is created in the pan bottom via induced currents from coils under the Ceram cooktop. It has many of the properties of gas, such as response time. It usually provides more power per burner and better simmer. It won't flambé marshmallows, however. The cooktop is easily cleaned due to being cooler and food can't fall into the burner.

Here are two more aphorisms for you:

• Perfect is the enemy of good enough
• Unaffordable solutions provide no benefit

Thank you @Fori @wdccruise and @kaseki . Really appreciate the advice and ideas as I keep doodling away at this. Will check out the options you all mentioned as well.