After you have done some cooks on it....if you are keeping it.....you will find that the placement of the handle and the moving of the lid up and back is easier if you want to tend to the meat as you are lifting the lid....if that makes any sense. If you hate the way a vertical smoker lid with a hinge works then there is no way you will like this type of lid setup but since I never cook without the lid on the grill ....even when I do burgers or dogs etc. I just leave the lid up and out of the way....I find it very useful. When I rotisserie, I have a standard lid that I use and It is a pain to remove the lid as far as I am concerned but like I said if you hate this type of design nothing I say will change your mind. And....before anyone gets on here and complains about the placement of the top vent ....don't. I will argue with anyone who says that it doesn't work as good as the vent placement on a standard lid when smoking. Since most of the stuff I cook is at least reverse sear or outright smoking , the color and bark , smoke rings etc. will match with any done on a kettle with a standard lid. As far as the thermometer goes ....I know that these kind of thermometers are not considered reliable or accurate but if you know what you are dealing with you can use them with great results. These are the same thermometers that they have on the golds as far as I know and the placement is the same. If you know that the temp at the top of the dome is not the same as grate level you are half way there. The first thing I did when I got mine was check the temp at grate level and compare it to the lid temp. There was a difference of about 50 degrees. So they are not accurate but mine is constantly inaccurate....so some simple math tells me the temp at grate level. I don't do any food prep at the grill, so the side tables are not used for that but I do use them for trays utensils etc. If I did food prep at the grill I would prefer the single bigger table that other models have, or I would most likely just have a seperate table set up. There.....that was my rant for the One Touch Platinum. I don't know where all the bad rap for these models came from....probably the original price....but when I went down to Lowe's to get me a Weber, I had never seen one of these before.....the main reason I got it aside from the huge discount that I got was the sturdy frame. I wanted a Weber with an ash catcher and I wanted one that was not on three legs since we do get a LOT of wind here. They did not have a Perfomer there so I did not have a chance to see one before I bought mine, but I was looking for that model without the gas lighter.....I bought this model and would highly recomend it to any Weber Q-er!