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'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.

Wow, cooper--that's really a testimonial to that microhood. Amazing. That's really great. We started out getting a microhood (actually a convection microhood) but then the convection part was so pathetic I ended up returning it and having to fight for my money back...I decided we'd just have the microwave somewhere else and got a hood instead (it cost about the same, actually). Unfortunately, since we'd planned the microhood originally I had only 30" for the hood, and I can really see now why they recommend 6" over the width of the range for the hood. Oh well. I bought up (the 650) because I hated our range (we were keeping it at the time) and I was dreaming of the day we'd replace it with a decent one -- gosh, one of this girl's dreams has finally come true--backwards, sideways, and 4 years late, but hey...

His comment had to do with repairs. He said that If a Bluestar needs a repair, you can take it apart only a couple of times and that these flimsy clips (where they are I do not know) break easily. This may not be very helpful. He recommended Wolf mainly for their great customer service. He did say that the Bluestar was nice but he thought the Wolf was made better. I may see him again next week when he brings the part needed for my washing machine so I will ask him again. He did steer me away from Thermador due to their poor customer service. All of the models I mentioned in my first post are available locally, but I would have to take a drive to use any of them. We live in central VA so I would guess that the DC area would have a store with some live cooking available.