JJ, I went with the Pit Boss Austin XL for a couple of reasons. One is the ability to slide the fire grate opn and directly sear over the open flame, and second was the pellet dump feature. It has 1000 sq in of grill space which is nice, a couple meat probes, and several heat levels anlong with being able to control how much pellets feed when you are in smoke mode. I have only done 4 cooks on mine so far and all went well. When you finish your run just turn it off and the fan stays running until the unit cools down. On thing I did notice is that there is almost 100% combustion on the pellets, so very little ash residue as far as cleaning goes. I have always been a stick burner but I am sold on this one.I too am looking at Pellet Grills. The best use of the Pellet Dump is not to change flavors as much as if you live with High Humidity, removing the pellets will save time clearing auger jams from disintegrating pellets. I would not purchase any NEW entries into the Pellet Grill market for at least a year and the Bugs have been discovered and worked out. Look at the Weber debacle...JJ
HT