This is an interesting pit.
Your wish list was pretty long, I'm surprised that you were able to find a pit with all of those features under $1000.
Maybe I'm just out of touch on prices these days, it's been a while since I seriously looked at a new pit.
Were there very many others that met all of these requirements?
The only one that came close was the Firecraft Q450...but we all know what happened with that product!
The Memphis (and the new Twin Eagle) hit a lot of my checks too, but the prices were really discouraging for me. I could see myself not wanting to get those pits dirty and having anxiety about it being stolen or damaged by the storms we get here.
The Kuma, despite not being all stainless was also in consideration because the of the pellet feed system and the direct flame, but they wanted $$$ for every single option (from warming shelves to lift gate service). The Eco had everything that I think should be standard included in the price.
I couldn't wait around for a local used pit to become available (I've been checking for months and months, on and off, craiglist, eBay, other local discussion boards), and I was willing to pay for the new Beale Street coming out, but I'm relieved that I went with this. The only thing that might make it near perfect would be a a solid wifi system, and maybe a pellet dump feature...but maybe for the next grill I buy! I'm not sold that any single company has the wifi and app situation figured out, although GMG comes really close (I read the good and bad discussions and posts on various boards).
This grill just seemed to say, "Hey, try me out and if we don't work out, at least you're not out thousands of dollars!"