If you want really easy cleaning, enamel is much easier than stainless, but induction is easiest of all!

The things that make the cooking better are usually the things that make cleanup worse. Some open burner ranges have drip trays that pull out much more easily. I think at least one has a kind of drawer, from which one can remove the drip trays to the sink. Some you have to open up the whole thing and are really inconvenient. No matter what you have, moving good grates is a lot of heaviness, but cooking on continuous grates is SO much nicer!

You can still get the Euro style cooktops where the burners are above the plane of the counter, and the underneath is flush. There's a stand for the pot, but you can push the top off if you stir too hard. That's probably about the easiest to clean, but hard to cook on.

You can get the Wolf with continuous grates all across the top (8 burners). If you want the griddle or grill you can get the cover which continues the plane of the grates even though it's in the middle.

We currently have a 30" Thermador range with sealed burners and I don't think cleanup is that easy. Spills and boilovers become a baked on mess and we end up scratching the stainless surface. Aside from this, washing with soap leaves a film and the surface must be wiped with clean water several times and then dried to get the soap off.

I'm very interested in the Blue Star, but my main question concerns the grates. They seem very rough and heavy. How often do they need to be cleaned and/or removed? Does the rough surface catch when cleaning and leave bits of sponge behind?

No the grates are not rough. They are heavy. My housekeeper cleans them every two weeks. She takes them out and scrubs them in the sink and then puts them back and turns on the burners to dry them. Of course, none of this is necessary but she is really OCD and refuses to let them develop a patina. In between cleanings, I use the back of a dampened green scrubbie to wipe off bits of sauce or other cooked on stuff. The crud comes right off and the grate looks perfect afterwards. Quite unlike using the back of the green scrubbie to clean the stainless steel on the Bosch and producing those nasty scratches.

My Capital open burner range top is pretty easy to clean. I cover the two dripping tray with foil. After about two months' use, they are still pretty clean. Well one normally does not see them anyway. I don't expect to replace the foil any time soon. As for the upper dripping pans, the best thing is nothing bakes on them. It is easy to wipe them clean. I only wipe the grates when cleaning the dripping pans, rather than washing them. They look fine too.

People swear up and down one is easier to clean but you really have to make the decision yourself. If you can't see in person the burners you can look on YouTube to see videos if cleaning a BlueStar or CC. The American Performer is semi sealed in that the whole tray lifts off and goes in the dishwasher.

I do have Wolf and the tray is sealed and it is very easy to clean. Just lift the grates and wipe. We had a Dacor sealed range, ER36D, and my husband thought it was harder to clean. I think BS would be easy too. Long term the BS will season like a cast iron pan. Black enamel can etch but you can't really see that under the grates. Stainless can change its appearance due to heat. I think there have been others on this forum that complain about cleaning Thermador.

So long as there is a real drip pan below the open burner that you can just remove and take to the sink to clean, open burners are a lot easier. In at least some of the older open burner stoves the open burner top lifted up and then you had to reach in and around all the burners and gas lines and clean it out at the stove, this was really a pain to do and accounts for the poor cleanability reputation of open burner stoves. You really have to look at the particular model you are contemplating to determine its cleanability.

I'll join in to echo pretty much everything nycbluedevil says.
My Bluestar is the easiest range to keep clean I've ever owned! Two years of 2-3 times a day use, and I've never used soap and water on the grates or burner bowls.
A quick wipe down, and sweep with a basting or small paint brush to clear crumbs into the pullout trays below is all it takes. I pull the trays maybe every two weeks and wipe/brush into sink.
I treat the built in griddle the same way, and it has become so well seasoned that eggs slide off as if it were non-stick :) Chris

I just watched some youtube videos on cleaning the BS and they were very informative. Some even said that you can put the grates and bowls in the dishwasher as long as you don't put it on a dry cycle. I think I would be hesitant to do this though, as I'd probably forget to take them out promptly, and would be concerned that they might rust.

There was also an interesting comparison of Wolf vs. BS burners by a place called Eurostoves.

Eurostoves is Trevor Lawson's shop. Trevor is really knowledgeable and is very generous about sharing information. He posted those videos when he used to sell BS. He now sells only Capital Culinarian, I think. Capital and Blue Star are the two biggest competitors in the open burner space. I spoke to Trevor when I was trying to decide between a Capital and a Blue Star. Of course, he is now partial to Capital, since that is what he sells. But I just liked the BS better and even Trevor said that I couldn't go wrong with either one.

Posted by greasetrap
There was also an interesting comparison of Wolf vs. BS burners by a place called Eurostoves.
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Keep in mind these are marketing videos made to sell BS.
These burners are not made by Wolf at present but the dual stacked burners are.

"The heat is thrown to the side of the pan"
You have to look at how you cook. If you put a 5 inch pan on the Wolf burner and turn it up all the way the flame might go around the pan, but who does that? This happens on the BS too later in the video. Personally I would switch it to the small pan burner on the Wolf (and Capital Culinarian) and use the smallest BS burner. I use a 7 inch sauce pan on my Wolf with mod heat on regular burners to make caramel and the pan heats evenly even though it is old Revereware with only 0.5 mm of copper. You really can't stir the caramel so it has to cook evenly. If it was a problem I could use the small pan burner.

"Tiny simmer burner"
If you use a heat conductive pan (copper or aluminum)this is not an issue but Wolf has the dual stacked burners of the same diameter now. He comments about the All Clad pans not being very good but Fissler being better. It very much depends on what line within the brands that you are talking about. There are good and bad in both. It is difficult to evaluate plied cookware as the amount of conductive metals inside is often an unknown. For highest performance you are better with thick copper or aluminum. If you look at the video, the 5 inch pan loses heat on the smallest star shaped burner. The wolf small pan burner is probably the best option.

"You can simmer better on this because of more even heat"
I would want to know the BTU rating to determine which will go the lowest. Temperature given by BS in relation to the burner means nothing. Along with the amount if BTUs temperature in the pan depends in the size, shape, metal the pan is made of and what you are cooking. Evenness can be provided by the cookware.

The star shaped burner would be a help in providing even heat to something like cast iron or steel as long as the pan is properly sized to the burner. If you use the smallest star burner on large fry pan, having the heat to the center is uneven. Your ring burner might be better and more even in that case.

BS does have a higher Btu rating on the high side. This is good for heating something faster. Water will boil a few minutes quicker. You can heat a cast iron pan hot enough to sear a steak on either. It will take a little longer to reach temperature on the Wolf but it will get hot enough to vaporize oil. Higher BTUs will help with recovery of heat in a pan when you add food.

They have advantages or disadvantages depending on how you cook. You do have to look at marketing very carefully whether it is videos or cooking demos or whatever. Even though they are presented a "studies" or quasi science, look at who is presenting the info or paying for the...