Ahhh, I misread the "work in progress" thing. I thought you were rebuilding one <chuckle>.
Yes, that will be much easier to maintain the heat over the long haul.
Man, I was watching Bourdain's "No Reservations" from Uruguay and he showed this big commercial grill setup in the local market that I would die for. In the front, a grill surface angled at about 30 degrees. Under it, a large coal catching surface. And a tall firebox in the back where you just toss wood over the top of the grill (almost like an open chimney). When the wood burns down, you shovel it from back to front with a long-handled prodding device. Very simple and very cool. They must of had a few hundred pounds of all sort of meat grilling on the sucker (the grill surface looked like it was about 10 X10).