you are right - you can lock it in pretty well and let it ride. It takes practice but when you figure it out, I beleive you are correct that its not THAT burdensome. But I found that even after several years of practice I was still opening my cooker pretty frequently to check things. That's not really the fault of the cooker, its the fault of the cook.

But overall its hard to argue that a pellet cooker isn't easier. I use mine a lot more than I did my drum smoker. And my pellet cooker recovers and gets back to the right temp more quickly when I just have to open it to take a peek.

I would still LOVE a stickburner. And I'd love a third day in the weekend where I could drive my RV and stickburner to BBQ competitions . . .