Product review (1 stars): So just for fun I took the grate off
*edit*  I fixed the poor design of the burners.  Read below to see why the burners were so frustrating to me.

The fix:  I drilled a 3/16" hole through the center of the large burner cover.  This gives me a bunson burner type center flame (at a little velocity) in the dead center of the cover that rises about 4", kind of like a burning oil well.  The ring flames still work, I just now have two sources of heat -- the center flare and the ring.

I tried heating a pan with a hamburger in it and it started to sizzle after only about 20 seconds.  That same sizzle would have taken 3 minutes or longer with the oringinal ring design.
*end of edit*

There is something odd about the stovetop part of this range.  When the grills are install, the bottom of a pan sits about 1 1/2" above the burner cover.  That seemed high to me.  The small burners in the back are 1 5/8" from the pan bottom, and the two larger burners are 1 3/8" below pan level.  With that large amount of clearance, a lot of the heat from the flames dissipates in the air before it hits the pan bottom.

So just for fun I took the grate off, and put my frypan right on top of the flame.  BAM!!!!  started heavily sizzling in like three seconds.  Put the grill back on, set the pan down, nothing.

Bottom line is that frying (or water heating) performance depends on how far the pan bottom is from the flame.  If it's like 1 1/2" as it is with this stove, the performance suffers a lot.  I read some people thought it took too long to heat water, which didn't make sense to me given the high BTU from the center and the right front burners.  Well, know I know.  The grates simply remove the pan too far from the burner

Bottom line is about half of those BTUs are getting sucked up by the air between the burner and the pan.  Which means stuff heats up a lot more slowly, AND, the burners are heating up the house as much as they are heating the bottom of your pan.

***edit***  I decided to really learn how much slower heating is up on the grate vs. sitting on the burner cover, so I did this experiment:

Test:  How quickly I can get  of water, about 16 oz. to come to a boil

Pan used: Cuisinart 722-24NS Chef's Classic Nonstick Stainless 10-Inch Open Skillet

Method 1:  Pan resting directly on left front burner cover, burner to high

Visible Steam:  1:12
Gentle boil, edge of pan:  2:00
Rolling Boil, edge of pan:  3:15
Rolling Boil, Center of pan:  4:10

Method 2:  Pan sitting on elevated Grate (the normal way)

Visible Steam:  never, actually
Gentle boil, edge of pan:  5:15
Rolling Boil, edge of pan:  14:00
Rolling Boil, Center of pan:  never, gave up at 15:00, wasting too much gas

Now what I'm trying to figure out is whether it is possible to raised the burners by about 3/4"... I have to take a look at how they're mounted.  Just hate, hate, hate waiting a long time to boil water, and hate even more wasting so much gas to heat air and not the pot.