Product review (1 stars): Too hard to clean!
Update 11/17/2015 - Dropped this to a 1-star rating.  Absolutely HATE cleaning this thing.  Awful design by Whirlpool.  In order to thoroughly clean this, I end up basically taking the entire top apart.  Takes way too much time and doesn't stay very clean for long.  My wife wants to replace it now... but these are costly!

My wife and I purchased this cooktop as part an entire suite of Whirlpool Gold appliances for a kitchen remodel.  We've been using this for about 2 years now.

Pros:
- The cooktop is beautiful (when it's clean...see Cons).  It it made of quality materials and it looks like it.  The knobs are not cheap plastic...when you pull them off for cleaning you can feel the weight and how solid they are.  The grates are rock solid.
- Plenty of space for cooking many items at once.
- Fine control of the flames.  And if the flame gets blown out, it will relight itself.
- The recessed grates really give it a nice built-in appearance.  But is also the cause of one of the Cons.

Cons:
- This is the sole reason for the 3-star rating.  This appliance is VERY difficult to clean.  And I believe the reason is due to the recessed grates.  The way this cooktop is designed, the perimeter sits relatively flush with the counter, basically the thickness of the stainless steel (...maybe 1/8 inch or so) is above the level of the counter.  Then where the grates start, it drops down about 1/2 to 3/4 inch (vertically) which allows the grates to be recessed.  While this is visually very nice it makes it very difficult to clean.  You're basically cleaning the bottom of a very shallow box.  So as you're wiping the bottom of the cooktop, there's really no easy way to get the crumbs and stuff out of the cooking area because you can't wipe them "off".  You're wiping them into a vertical wall or into a corner.  I think if Whirlpool would have made the bottom into drip trays, or at least something that could be easily removed for cleaning, then it wouldn't be a problem.  But the stainless steel bottom of the cooktop isn't removable without removing all of the burners and all the screws that hold it down.  For an appliance that gets so much use, and one that typically is a bit messy, this is poor.
- If water or liquid spill out onto the cooktop, there a good chance that the liquid can get past the seal and get to the igniters.  If that happens, the igniters will not stop clicking even if the burner is lit.  The solution is easy but time consuming.  You have to remove all the burners and remove the bottom of the cooktop.  Then find all the igniters and remove them and dry them off as well as dry the area they're in.  This happened to me once.  The igniters are in the front-right corner of the cooktop, so if you ever accidentally spill something there, wipe it up fast!

Overall it's a well constructed appliance that looks great and works well.  But it's not really well designed for quick, easy daily cleaning.  And as such I find that it looks like it's dirty more often than it looks really clean.  I'll probably take it all apart soon and give the bottom a good cleaning, but I shouldn't have to go to such extreme measures to clean an appliance. And I expect this will have to be somewhat of a regular task to keep it looking nice...maybe a few times a year.

Thanks for reading.