The open burners are much better for evenly heating pots and pans. It's not even close :-)

As for RCS vs RNB, you'll definitely have people tell you that the higher btus on the RNB are worth it. I can't say that they aren't worth it.

But I can say that I've had a 36" RCS for a decade and I've never thought my burners lacked power. I might not get a pot of water boiling as quickly, but searing, sauteing, simmering, are all amazing. We cook a lot and it's been a wonderful range. I highly recommend it.

I have a 36” RNB. We finished our house build last fall, and after living in a miserable “temporary” living situation for just shy of 3 years while we built this house, I’ve been cooking up a storm in my new kitchen and enjoying our new home! LOL! I do a lot of high heat cooking, so when I was contemplating which range to get I initially considered induction or gas. I ruled out induction because we live rural where there are a lot of power outages. I knew if I went gas I wanted Bluestar but I was waffling between the RNB or the Platinum. Long story shorter, we had to trim the budget in some areas and I decided to go with the RNB. I’m so glad I did! Turns out I didn’t need the extra bit of BTU that the platinum series offered. At all. Not in the least. It’s so powerful that I’m often turning down the heat. (And holy crap, don’t try to use the big burners for eggs... you can’t get it to a low enough heat, lol... it’s ok, the other burners work fine for eggs.)
Anyways, I adore the open burners. They heat the pans very evenly. Yes, spills will drop down under the area where the burners are, BUT it’s so easy to take everything off and get to where things spilled once you’re ready to clean things. Like, you can actually get to everything TO clean it instead of just wiping around burners.

Open burners are actually easy to clean. It was a big marketing campaign in the 80s or 90s to convince people to change from the open burners that they’d had for decades to the new (at the time) closed burners. The marketing worked. But open burners are better.

The Bluestar open burner ranges also have the cast iron cooktop which is superior to a stainless steel or enamel cooktop that you get with a closed-burner range. There was a post on here from someone who was advised here to get the open-burner Bluestar, but he disagreed and got the closed burner range. He later posted back that it was a regret, and he wished he’d gotten the open-burner Bluestar. If only the Houzz search function were better, I could find the post

I want to add that you better think through the hood exhaust requirements for a 36” range, especially one with high btus like a Bluestar. Do not shrug at this or think it’s not a big deal - many people do that and live to regret it.

Totally agree with M Miller about the hood exhaust! I went with a 42” bluestar hood and blowers for our 36” RNB. We also have make up air, but since we live in the mild climate of the PNW coast we didn’t need heated make up air.

Given that you need more MUA as you go up in BTUS, I would recommend the RCS because the lower BTUs will allow you to cook all day long and put less pressure on your ventilation system, which of course will still need regardless of what you go with. For what it’s worth, the blue star ranges with open burners are the descendant of the garland range that Julia child used in her famous kitchen. And Bluestar ranges are simple in a good way making them easy to repair long-term and will heirloom, long-term in Service life so as not to become “orphan models“ like some of the other competing brands with their electronics, which eventually go out of production and become hard to find parts for.

My husband and I are both avid cooks. We built a custom home in 2003 and looked for a commercial grade range for our kitchen. We chose a Garland - restaurant grade brand which had a residential line (approved for residenital installation). When the 36" open flame range arrived it had no name on it. We came to understand that Garland residential line had just been acquired by Blue Star yet the rebranding had not yet occured. We have had this range for 20 years now and we love it with a few exceptions explained in a bit.

M Miller is correct: This range requires a hood slightly wider than the range with a higher CFM fan or blower. We purchased a Thermador 42" (?) with an external blower (due to the mechanical layout in our ceiling) with a very high CFM (I don't recall the value). The hood has worked flawlessly; we would purchase the same again.

My husband insisted on the highest BTUs available which lead us to the Garland/Blue Star. One word of caution - purchase cookware that can handle this level of heat. We went through several professional grades of European and US made cookware that could not handle the high heat emitted by the gas burners. We found ourselves replacing expensive cookware.

The range is easy to clean and extremely durable. We have put the grates and burners in the dishwasher (hand wash comes out better). This deep cleaning is only required when you boil over fluids...over time. We had a few ignitors stop working which we replaced and unfortunately are now hard to find due to the age of the range and the ignitor design has changed slightly.

The lettering on the knobs wore off after 15 years: Blue Star replaced the knobs at no charge.

The oven's infrared burner, if still offered, is excellent. The gas oven has a fan swith to circluate the air for convection cooking. There is no self-cleaning on the gas oven which may be considered a downside.

After 20 + years this range continues to perform flawlessly. We would not consider buying higher BTUs; the Blue Star was more than adequate. As a point of reference, we cook nearly every evening and morning, multi course meals. This range has been a work horse!

Our range last month (exuse the remodel caused by burst pipe!)

I hope this helps.

The data seems very clear on open burners being better for heat distribution, but I was leery of the open burners and cleaning until I cooked on and cleaned up a Blue Star range at a relative's house several times. It's amazing and the cleanup is so much easier than the flat closed stainless cooktop I can't wait to get rid of. Team open burner all the way and have ordered Blue Star RNB for our new house.

Thanks everyone, Very helpful!