LF,

What a coincidence! We just had a new stove delivered yesterday. It's a Whirlpool and got it at Lowe's. Old stove was about 21 years old. New one has the smooth top with a warming spot in the back middle area. Touch pads for oven, cleaning and etc. The heating element inside is on the top and not the bottom; so, any spills don't go on a bottom element and stink up the place while cooking. Neat feature is the inside top rack has a removable section, on the right hand side, in case you want to cook a large turkey or the like and you can use the rest of the shelf space for veggies or whatever. Salesman recommended a new wiring harness for it and the delivery folks installed it in a few minutes. We slid it into the old wall space after trimming about a quarter inch off the floor level molding strip, turned it on for a fifteen minute burn out (watch your smoke alarms for a while) and away we go! Cleaner that came with the stove was a small bottle labeled "Cooktop Cleaner" from Whirlpool. Looking forward to trying it out.