Damian,
I read some comments about ranges by other posters on other forums here and I would have to disagree with them on quite a number of issues. However, let us all keep in mind:
"In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane." Oscar Wilde
Two 30" stoves is economical, but visually not very appealing.
Also what stove are you going to buy, most high-end home models have some serious drawbacks. Only 1 burner is high and only 1 burner is a simmer burner, etc.
Here are my takes on things
The nonsense about not needing high heat to sauté properly is silly. The extra heat is designed to keep the pan HOT after you place in the product, if you don't keep it hot you will begin to steam rather than sauté. I would want all of my burners to be able to produce 15K BTU minimum and all of them to be able to simmer.
Dual fuel is a waste of money and a marketing gimmick, the only people who might want it are precision bakers who need very low humidity ovens.
Sealed burners and self-cleaning ovens - more gimmicks.
For reliability issues I must disagree again - 4 years ago when I purchased my second commercial style residential stove I spent many hours researching, even to the point of taking a wolf and Viking apart in a show room. I also spoke to quite a few service managers and service technicians from two very high volume Los Angeles area stores and the highest volume dealer in Seattle.
Remember things change - this was 4 years ago and this is how they rated the appliances
Wolf - unanimously they all picked this as number 1 for reliability - am very surprised to have read otherwise here (I have owned 2 for a grand total of 15 years with ZERO problems. My current 48" wolf gets a major workout weekly.)
American Range - 2nd
Imperial and Viking - 3rd, but all mentioned a higher than normal repair rate, would not recommend and Imperial as mentioned before is weird looking.
Dacor, DCS, 4 star - all bad
Currently it appears to me that SubZero, who bought Wolf (residential) have begun to tweak them, they did have some recall issues a year or two ago so this may be the decline of them.
BlueStar the other name you hear being tossed about a lot was relatively unknown on the West coast but they are a company to look into.
I choose the wolf for several reasons, reliability of my first one and the unanimous praise that service managers and technicians still had for it. Beefier construction internally than the Viking, plus I noticed that SubZero was still using the same parts on the 2004/5 stove as it did on my Wolf manufactured one. And probably the best feature of it was the infrared ceramic Char-grill was top notch. It is nothing like the Viking or BlueStar marking grill that simply has a gas tube pouring out heat, this is a true high end ceramic unit that can truly sear a steak, not just mark it. With the addition of a smoker box and some wood chips and you have 24/7 wood fired grill that 99.9% of the people will swear I cooked the steaks outside over the real wood grill by my pool. Of course you will need a hood, to do this.
Now that I've muddled the pot here are some suggestions for you, in today's current turbulent marketplace, buy used.
A 3 year old 60" Viking was sold in an estate sale by me for a little over 3K. Ebay has some values, check craigslist, ($4100 for a 48" wolf with charbroiler in Phoenix) and call your local appliance stores, many of them buy back these stoves on estate sales for customers who want them.