bally70, The professional style ranges have bigger burners. You will find this is the case open or sealed. Most have a small pan or simmer burner that is smaller to accommodate a smaller pan. That being said, I have a Wolf range with sealed burners and regularly use pans that are 7 inches in diameter. This is a video I made of a pan, 7 inches in diameter caramelizing sugar on the bigger burner. Pretty even heat. Scroll down on this link and you will see the Capital Culinarian open burner with the flame wrapping around the flat bottomed Wok. It has more to do with being bigger burners. Also scroll to the bottom of this thread to show even with an open burner you must adjust the heat down for a smaller pan. My burners have minimal flare until you get to the very highest heat. If I need to use a 6 inch pan or smaller I use the small burner. I can use it on the bigger burner if centered perfectly and because the pan is heavy aluminum so the heat is conducted to the middle of the pan. You will need to turn the burner down in any case so the flame is under the pan. If you turn the burner on to where the flame is going around the pan, you are wasting your heat and it will take longer to heat what you are cooking. Low to moderately high heat makes a ring about 4-4.5 inches across. If your flame is going sideways, something isn't right. I would also look at what kind of cookware you are using. Some conducts heat much more effectively than others. It has nothing to do with the costs but the properties of the metal. How did you determine the efficiency of your burners the old and the new? I don't find it taking very long to boil water but it is not a priority for me. If boiling water in the quickest way possible is important, induction is probably the way to go. Maybe a single plug in induction hob would be something to consider. I couldn't tell you which would be the best. The burners you have are not poorly designed but are different and many people are surprised when they go from a conventional range to the prostyle that the burners are wider.

I have a range (NXR 30") that uses the exact same burners as the Wolf. I personally have no problems at all with it, but then again the smallest pot I own is 10", everything else is 11"-14" including the Wok. Plus a large 14X24" Steel Griddle. So I don't have any problem with the larger diameter of the burners and I love having all burners the same where I can have all 4 full blast at 15,000BTU or all 4 at super low simmer and everything in between. As for not being able to "Simmer a pot of sauce" with the Wolf burners that is complete nonsense. I am right now as I type simmering a LARGE pot of Sketti sauce on high simmer. It is in a Swiss Diamond 8 1/2 Qt pot and its at least 2/3rds full. But there is a high simmer and a low simmer. The super low simmer is obviously not for doing a very large pot of sauce, its meant for doing something like keeping mash potatoes warm, or holding an emulsion like hollandaise or a beurre blanc, or melting chocolate and it does so perfectly. That is what is so sweet about these burners is the ability of that super low (melt chocolate on a paper plate low flame)plus the slightly higher simmer that is for large pots of sauce. The high simmer as you can tell works just fine, in fact perfect for simmering a LARGE pot of sauce all day. You can see at least 3 sauce volcanoes coming up in my sauce here, (although a couple are just bubbles that might be hard to make out unless you know where to look) simmers perfectly, any more and it would burn. (Just ran back down to stir it and taste and had 4 bubbling volcanoes going) So obviously Consumer Reports is clueless in that respect. If you have and prefer to use tiny pots then yes you should get something like a Capital Culinarian as those burners would fit you small pot needs better. This is the high simmer with about 5Qts of sketti sauce simmering away just fine right now.

I'd be interested to see pictures of the burner head assembly you are referring to as well as the ignitor. My burner head is two pieces and the top half (i.e. the portion with the holes) easily separates from the bottom half (the base). The entire assembly pulls off the orifice without much difficulty (some more easily than others). As to the travel, my experience is similar to yours at the high end -- I am unaware of any way to adjust this. (FWIW, I am on LP) -- but I get some adjustment from mid-way all the way down to the lowest setting.

We are a countertop fabricator. We have a customer asking about installing a PITT system. We use granite and also carry all the brands of Quartz. Our concern is the heat on the countertops. Quartz is more sensitive to the heat than granite. Assuming the burners are well insulated for the heat in the countertop, we are also concerned with the flame or radiating heat coming down from an oversized pot on the stove. Thoughts?