Jason: What is the plate that is wrapped in foil? Is that part of the set up or your own contraption you have added.
On the bottome set of tabs, just above the charcoal ring, I place a 1/4" x 16" piece of steel. I then place a 16" x 1" deep pizza pan (wrapped with foil for easy clean-up) directly on top of the steel. Almost 100% of the drippings end up in the pizza pan, no matter how much meat is on the cooking grate. I picked up the steel disk at a local steel yard and the pizza pan at a used restaurant supply store. I'm convinced that the steel diffuser really helps this rig run so stable.