Hi Larry
I think the plate distributes rather than restricts the heat. That bad boy is hot. You will, without question have plenty of heat to sear your steak as provided. They are quite tasty on the Wolf. You will have the nicest grill marks on a steak in your neighborhood.

Aloha

Oh, forget about broiling, You'r grillin' now.

The diffusing plate also helps reduce flare up and provides a bit more smoke from drippings, as opposed to burning off instantly if it hit the red hot ceramic surface.

There is a problem with the radiant plate design. The rear half is virtually unusable. If you reverse the plate you can reverse the problem. The rear half of the grill doesnt radiate enough heat to make a grilled cheese sandwich. You can remove the radiant plate but then the ceramic burners will get full of gunk. If you refer to the Wolf video, you will notice a different design, with no radiant plate and a stell mesh over the ceramic burners, which they show someone scrubbing with a brush to clean. There are NO instructions in the manual which indicates how to clean the ceramic infrared burner. I've had this unit for 2 weeks now, have had to techs, in and their support center basically says its operating as designed. I'm am not satisfied with this assertion, they might as well have just covered the rear half, because you cant cook on it. I'm still dealing with the Westeye group in Orlando Fl, and they seem to be responsive. Lets see what happens.