The things I dislike the most about the charcoal grills is cleaning out the ashes after doing anything that drips down and is sticky. The WSM isn't too bad - it doesn't even pretend to have an "easy" option but it doesn't really need one - you just lift the base up and dump the ash out. No big deal.
The kettles, on the other hand, have those stupid spinning things that work for maybe a week after getting the grill and then jam up against the slightest bit of drippings and then either take a lot of force to move, or will eventually just get bent out of shape and just not work at all. It's also really difficult to see down there to see how far open they are (and the little gauge on the performer one that is meant to show you when they are open or not is not very accurate in my experience)
The snap-jet ignition is a nice improvement, but to be honest the way I start my charcoal grill for most things is with a weed burner - you can get the coals red hot in about 2 minutes flat and you can also pre-heat the grate to the point it is literally red hot if you want to sear stakes or something. Using the gas-assist to start and you are still looking at about 30 minutes from when you light up to when you can actually grill. (I can't imagine that they would ever put in a weed-burner like inferno as a starting element because it'd be super dangerous to have built-in - that's not my point. My main point is that gas assist is a nice-to-have, but not a necessity. If they shipped this without gas assist I'd be just as likely to buy it - and more so if not having gas assist made it a few hundred dollars cheaper.)
Before it came out I was skeptical. What they came out with honestly doesn't impress me much. The air control on this would still be a major pain in the butt to mount a blower to use a stoker or other computer temperature control. It'd be nice if they had manufactured in some kind of port to make it easier for those kinds of systems to be used... and had some kind of auxiliary thermometer hole in the lid that would let you easily put an aftermarket temperature probe in it or something...
I would not consider this the "Ferrari" of charcoal grills. It's more like a very expensive sedan... In other words - it's not (for me) something aspirational. For years when I was grilling on various old weber gas grills I bought off craigslist I knew that eventually I wanted to get an S-670 - I aspired to get it and saved etc - and when I found one at a good price I jumped at the chance to get it. After using it for over a year I'm happy I did - it's a great grill and it is extremely versatile. It lets me easily do things that I couldn't easily do on my other grills.
When they first did their teaser for the "Grill of a Lifetime" I actually was equally excited that they may have found a way to make their top-of-the-line even nicer and then I'd have to start saving up for a new grill... This "grill of a lifetime" is not something I'm going to aspire to add to my collection of five other weber grills or smokers... but a BGE - maybe. They are going to have to really do a good job selling the performance of the insulated kettle vs ceramic for me to even consider it. (And again - the temp range of this thing doesn't scream "outdoor pizza oven" to me)
