What kind of smoker you go with is really up to the individual and should be based on your personal style of and reason for cooking Q.
Some people just want really good food and they're not particular about how they get it. They're more interested in eating than cooking. They tend to want to set it and forget it so they can socialize, play or go do other stuff while the food is cooking. For them, electric, propane, pellet poopers or puck shooters are a good way to go.
Other people are more into the process of making great food than they are really into the food itself. They're the pyros who are all about building, nuturing and using an actual fire made of wood or charcoal to cook their meat. They tend to like to fiddle with things; poke a bit here, tug a bit there, adjust a draft or realign a tuning plate. For those folks, stick-burning offsets are just about the pinacle of Q machines because they take more work and actually force you to
cook instead of socialize or play.
Then, there's the folks that are in the middle: They like cookers like the Ugly Drum Smoker,
Weber Smoky Mountain, ProQ, etc. The vertical water smoker and UDS crowd like good food and think that an actual wood-based fire provides better flavor, but are either not interested in babysitting an offset or have "been there - done that - got the t-shirt/trophy" and just don't want to mess with it anymore.
So... what you get is really up to you. What do you want? Why do you want to Q? Are you just a week-ender who wants to kick out some awesome grub every once in a while for family and friends
or are you going to be a die-hard, Q-lovin', smoke-obsessed fanatic that fires up the rig no less than three times a week regardless of weather, invite the neighborhood out so you can practice cooking on a massive scale for your catering business or next competition?
Answer those questions, then come back and I promise you'll get much more useful opinions.
