I couldn't agree more. We went through this a couple times over the past 10 years and it was shocking to me that, as you spent more on a grill, rather than it going up in quality and/or functionality, instead you just got a bigger sized version of the exact same thing. There has been almost no innovation in gas grills over the past 20 years. The only innovative outdoor cooking changes in the past 10 years have been all the electric/temperature control Traeger pellet grills. The problem with these is that you may as well just buy a stove for the outdoors, because you have a damn electrical cord plugging into your grill, which, to me, completely defeats the purpose of having a grill to begin with, not to mention completely negates the prepper value of having a grill (in case the power goes out for a month or something). If you wanna buy a nice grill, go back to 2012 and buy a Weber. What they made back then was high quality and the price was about 30% lower, now a lot of the metal components have been replaced with plastic and there has been no new innovations, the frame feels more wobbly, and it is 50% more expensive.
I feel your pain, this is an industry ripe for innovation. Somebody (perhaps one of us) needs to invent some new form of gas grill that is very heavy duty, has better insulated properties, perhaps somewhere in between what you see with the standard gas grill and what you get with a big green egg, and with materials that are made to last and not be easily broken, but which are easy to clean.
I couldn't agree more. We went through this a couple times over the past 10 years and it was shocking to me that, as you spent more on a grill, rather than it going up in quality and/or functionality, instead you just got a bigger sized version of the exact same thing. There has been almost no innovation in gas grills over the past 20 years. The only innovative outdoor cooking changes in the past 10 years have been all the electric/temperature control Traeger pellet grills. The problem with these is that you may as well just buy a stove for the outdoors, because you have a damn electrical cord plugging into your grill, which, to me, completely defeats the purpose of having a grill to begin with, not to mention completely negates the prepper value of having a grill (in case the power goes out for a month or something). If you wanna buy a nice grill, go back to 2012 and buy a Weber. What they made back then was high quality and the price was about 30% lower, now a lot of the metal components have been replaced with plastic and there has been no new innovations, the frame feels more wobbly, and it is 50% more expensive.
I feel your pain, this is an industry ripe for innovation. Somebody (perhaps one of us) needs to invent some new form of gas grill that is very heavy duty, has better insulated properties, perhaps somewhere in between what you see with the standard gas grill and what you get with a big green egg, and with materials that are made to last and not be easily broken, but which are easy to clean.
Around here, everyone brags about the "big green egg" grills. They pay like $500 for them and brag about how hot they can get 'em.
You could design and market a premium grill that yuppy faggot hipsters will spend $500+ on to try to make up for their lack of masculinity.
I believe in just building your own grill or taking someone's old junker for parts and welding the rest of it.
That's a good idea honestly (building one).