Faster is a big part of what's nice about a speed oven, but its not just that.

Combination modes combine regular heat with microwave cooking; this expands the range of things you might cook using microwaves, so its different from microwaving alone and not just faster than conventional baking.

Its handy to have a second oven available when the other is being used for something else. Since most smaller ovens pre-heat faster than regular ones, even on regular settings (bake, convection bake, etc.), you may want to have these ovens be different sizes. You could consider a steam oven for your second oven, since that can do some things more easily than a regular oven (even here, you can mimic a steam oven by adding water). Of course, what's best for you depends a lot on what you want to cook.

As I understand it, people don't like microwave/convection ovens as much as speed ovens; not sure why (I don't have one), though they tend to be cheaper. Also not sure about the microwave wearing out faster, or if its just that the microwave part wears out before a speed oven's other functions do.

Hope this helps.

We will probably install a speed oven when we redo the kitchen this spring. Appliances are being relocated and the Miele speedoven fits the best in what we are planning. We have had an OTR convection/microwave for 15 years and find it very useful.The drawback was the length of time to preheat the oven for convection baking. Since the new range will have a large oven a second smaller oven is needed for a lot of everyday task. The Miele can bake, broil, convection, and microwave. Being 220v the preheat time is supposedly very short (350 in 4-5 minutes). Not sure that is right, but a lot faster than regular OTR combination. In our case the size and all modes of cooking hopefully will outweigh the expense. The fold down door was also a feature that works in our situation. No matter which oven you choose a 220v circuit is the way to go. The main difference in a speedoven versus regular is the microwave feature and the fact that you are heating a much smaller space so preheating with 220v is very fast.

We are thinking the same thing (speed oven) and larger, inexpensive regular oven for the few times we would need it. Also thinking Miele, or advantium. The subject has been covered in other threads, but if anybody has new insight on this choice I'd love to hear it. I'm thinking the master chef Miele would work best for me. Also considering pairing it with the Miele microwave for those times where microwave is needed when the oven is in use. Not much talk on this forum about the Miele micro wave. Anybody have any experience?