Those are my basic questions, and I wanted to keep that post simple as I know longer posts don't always get replies on message boards, but I have done lots of research here and elsewhere so in case this is of help for others asking the same question in the future, I'll give more details here of what I have read/heard already...

Facts (please correct me if I have any of these wrong)...

Major differences Miele vs Wolf is Miele has a great interface on the masterchef that will allow you to enter in what you are cooking and set everything for you (nice, but not something I'd use very often). Wolf has two convection fans allowing for more sophisticated air circulation.

Major difference Miele chef vs masterchef: masterchef has the great GUI, a meat probe that attaches to the oven (a very nice feature), it goes to lower temps for things like proofing (chef only goes down to 125) and defrost (I'd use proof, but wouldn't personally use the defrost feature). chef has knobs and not just a touch pad (personally I like knobs).

Major differences Wolf E series vs L series: the L series allows you to flip the panel for settings out of sight (a feature I would never use and strikes me as a gimmick that might break and adds no value). The L series has a thicker door (3 panes of glass instead of 2) and a hydrolic door that opens and closes really nicely (features I'd really like).

Heard through the grapevine things...

One salesman who sells both told me the Miele is much better built and that you can tell as soon as you touch the ovens (which I can't do since they aren't in stock locally).

Another salesman who sells both says the Wolf is the one for serious cooks and has more accurate temperatures and that the Miele is nice, but not as nice.

My mother in law has the Miele and loves it.

There are posts on here claiming Miele has gone down hill lately, but it isn't clear to me if that is just a few people who are the exception or not. There are also posts claiming that Wolf was having troubles a few years back, but has fixed that. Again I can't find much hard data.

On Miele's website they do get recent positive reviews as a company (although not specifically on their ovens) from Which? (a British review site) and JD Power.

Finally I'll add that we have a Miele dishwasher that we love and a Wolf gas cooktop that we love so we have had great experiences with both and have gotten good customer service from both companies.

I have seen vague comments that Wolf had reliability problems a few years back, but may have fixed them and that Miele might have some now, but they are so vague that it is hard to pin down why people think this. I did find one long thread on here about problems with a Miele, but it seems like in the end (after some headache) the Miele was fixed under warranty.

I have a Wolf cooktop that I love and a Miele dishwasher that I love.

I have 2 Miele Master Chefs. One is the standard sized oven and one the speed oven. I use both extensively on any and all settings. LOVE them. I've even used the proofing in a pinch if I was rushing (shhh.... don't tell trailrunner cause she's my bread baking mentor).

I have a Wolf E-series oven and love it. So accurate and the dual fan convection is the only convection I've ever loved. In other convection ovens I didn't see an advantage, and sometimes even a disadvantage to using that feature, but in the Wolf I rarely have to turn or trade pans to get wonderful, even browning throughout the oven. We have 8 kids, and we cook and bake from scratch, including all our own bread, granola, pies, cookies, etc, so it usually sees daily use... and we often have the oven full, in using 2 or 3 racks at a time.

I have had a couple of issues with the porcelain crazing, then splintering in the front corners, but Wolf is quick to replace the oven so I miss maybe a morning of baking and no more headache than that. They've been a great example of standing behind their product for me. Also, recently they did have a problem with an error code, which my previous oven experienced along with the porcelain issue, but it was within a specific period of months of production. They are aware of the issue, and the new ovens coming out of the factory don't have it, and they will fix those did. You can probably find the discussion about that on the Appliance Forum.

I LOVE to use the probe for cooking meats, and in the Wolf, it works for baking breads and rolls, too, so no guessing about whether they're done inside. We cook several pizzas every Friday night at 550 degrees, and it keeps up, even with the door opening every 8 or 9 minutes to switch pizzas. I don't usually use the oven for raising breads, but when I have, I found the 85 degree proof mode in the Wolf to be fine. I use the proof mode in mine more often for making yogurt at 110 degrees.

My sister has a Miele. She found Miele to be very helpful and kind with any questions she had, so was impressed with customer service. The quality control from parts and materials through the construction, as explained to DH and I by an appliance rep, was impressive. But the oven hasn't thrilled her, and she's said she wouldn't spend the money to have one again. She bakes wedding cakes and not all the pans she's used to using will fit (she generally feels it seems smaller than other 30" ovens she's used), and it doesn't bake as evenly as she'd hoped. Her lukewarm opinion is what steered me away from Miele and eventually into the Wolf direction when I needed an oven most recently.

Best wishes... I know what a tough decision this can be!

I went with miele because of the probe. I love that thing. Always perfectly cooked meat!

Another with Miele. I use my ovens professionally and LOVE my double MasterChef ovens. I had some problems initially with the oven not getting to temperature but that turned out to be an installation error where the installer forgot to change the voltage setting to the American version from the European factory preset. Miele sent a technician to tried to fix it, oven still wasn't coming to the right temp so they sent out a replacement unit (both ovens) and I've not had a problem since.

I sort of joke that I wish I had because I would have switched to the side opening Gaggenau's if there had been more problems. They are more expensive and we would have needed to pay to have our custom oven cabinet altered so it really was more a wish than something we could have done in reality.

The ovens work really well. I upgraded the racks to the roll out ones which I love, love, love. I also use the rotisserie on a weekly basis and the Auto Roast setting makes an unbelievable Turkey (20 pounds in about 3 hours) with crisp skin and moist meat.

Don't tell trailrunner (sorry, C) but I definitely use my oven all the time to proof bread. I use the setting for less dense bread and turn the oven off when I put the bread in. Works great.

DH uses the dehydrator setting monthy to dry apple rings. He uses all 6 racks to do that.

I have used all six racks in both ovens at the same time to bake cookies on convection and with practice know that I have a hot spot on the second rack in the back right hand corner in both ovens so I just rotate that tray half way through. If I'm only using 3 racks, I don't get hot spots.

I haven't ever used the MasterChef settings. I want more control than they offer.

I would go with Miele again because if nothing else, they do have fantastic, really good customer support and service if you do have a problem/

ha..."I turn the oven off when I put in the bread"...yes..otherwise it is too hot to proof :)

Didn't know about different racks..these are like all the old timey racks I have ever used so I am used to them. I used the ovens to dehydrate tomatoes...way too much electricity...much better to get an inexpensive dehydrator on Amazon. Otherwise the rotisserie and the even baking are great !!

I went with the Wolf E series - just couldn't justify the extra for the flipper...
Bottom line - the Wolf interior was slightly larger than the Miele and Wolf had a sale at the right time.
(I do have a Miele DW and W/D)
I also considered the Elux and the Blue Star. I loved the BS cavity - you could put a full sheet into the 30 inch - but just wasn't convinced that I wanted a gas oven and wasn't sure about not having a clean function. (But I sure loved the door style!)
I went with the GE Advantium Speed oven and most don't realize 2 different brands.

I hope to add some more racks to use with the Wolf - and want to get more of the glide racks.

Loves2cook - wow 6 racks - where do you store them when you are not baking cookies and how do you fire up 6 trays that fast! I find that I barely get the second and third trays in the oven before some are done.

Trailrunner - Might have gone with the Miele after reading your post!!!

Now to start making bread.. But we have so many wonderful bakeries around here, that I am not sure anything I would make would compare. Zingerman's, Avalon, Ed's and this wonderful bread that I buy at one of the local farmer's market...

Major differences Miele vs Wolf is Miele has a great interface on the masterchef

Miele has a much more complicated interface.

Seems gimicky and does not add much value to me.

Set at 350 and give me 350.

Set at 100 and give me 100.

That is what I want in an oven. So I got a Gaggenau.

Between those two?

I would take the Wolf.

I have a single Miele Perfect Clean oven, same vintage as Trailrunners. I looked at Wolf at the time I bought the Miele. I'm very happy with my oven.

There is another major difference no one has touched on here. These two ovens work in very different ways. The Miele oven is based on a European convection system which is heat combination settings with and without convection. For example, autoroast, which someone referenced above, has you start food in a cold oven. For something huge like a turkey, that's so useful. Then the setting spikes and goes to temperature. This is my favorite roast setting.

For some settings both the bottom and top element heat at the same time etc. This requires a bit of a learning curve which I accepted for the oven. But I have found definite advantages in terms of control.

My oven heats very evenly and I've had 0 issues. Both brands have had issues reported on the appliance forum. Miele sometimes reports temp problems (though out DD has one with no issues) and Wolf has the crazing cracking business rhome and others reported and door condensation issues in the past. These brands tend to get those resolved so they may not be issues at all now. And no brand -- none -- has a perfect record. The self-clean may be the culprit (or not). Like trailrunner, I just wipe mine out. So easy.

Both are excellent top of the line choices. Hard to go wrong with either. Miele's Masterchef settings are a parallel universe. I used it once but I'm not looking to an appliance company to teach me how to cook. If you are, those can be a way of life and super for working couples who want a more automated oven that can turn itself on and off.

However, the outstanding features like the rolling racks, the rotisserie (can't rave enough about this), the integral drip pan (which eliminates the need for a roasting pan -- you just put the chicken/duck/roast on the rack and the pan catches any thermal runaways when baking), roasting probe are reasons to go with Miele. I personally find the interface easy to use. It has 2 timers. The probe gives you a 20 minute warning. I use the 125 "proof" mode for keeping food warm.

I haven't used a Wolf extensively so I can't speak to its features the way rhome can. But it's an excellent product from a top manufacturer with a different set of features, as rhome describes.

The features are too different to decide on that alone. I think it really comes down to assessing how you cook and which oven is a better fit for your needs. Good luck!

I have Wolf and got them before the E option came out. I don't rotate the panel, so I think that feature is a non-issue.

Mainly, I wanted to respond to the comment about how they cook differently. I'm not an expert in the differences, and I do preheat when use the convection roast setting (maybe I don't need to? I don't know). My preheat is not long (10 minutes to 350 bake) and I love the convection roast cycle. I was just telling someone about it this weekend because cooking turkey (and why we don't do it more often) came up. The last turkey I cooked was a smaller one I had in the freezer from the last holiday sales -- about 12-13 lbs. I put a rub on it (thawed), put it in the oven on convection roast and it was done in 70-75 minutes. A chicken will cook in a little less than an hour and the large 20+ pound turkey at the holidays cooks in 2-21/2 hours, but even better, the convection roast sears the skin and seals in the juices -- just like I used to do by superheating the oven then turning it down and slow roasting except I don't have to monkey with any of that. The net result sounds similar to the Miele, but I have never put the food into a cold oven and don't know if they would recommend that. Not a problem for me either way -- I like how it cooks.

For baking, the temps seem true and pretty even. That was more important to me that the tell me how to cook feature of the Meile. I also didn't care about the rotisserie since we have one on our grill and can use that nearly all year without having to clean the oven each time. BTW, the auto clean on the Wolf is really good, but you do need to remove the racks. They made that easy too -- they lift out. And you can use the oven to proof at 80 degrees -- in case you have a cold kitchen in the winter -- not a problem for me most of the year, but if you don't live in Texas it might be a valuable feature. Likewise, the rotisserie feature (for me that was more parts to store).

Neither are going to be a bad oven -- pick the features that mean the most to you and your cooking needs.

Thanks everyone for all the great input. This thread convinced me that I was right in my instinct that I'd probably be happy with whichever one I picked.

Well, I finally made a choice and ended up with a Wolf L series oven. I confess the deciding factor ended up being price in that I got a great deal on an unused floor model.

The second convection fan was pushing me towards wolf over miele as I thought I would use that far more often than the masterchef features.

A couple notes from comparing the E vs L vs Miele. The door on the E was by far the lightest and felt least sturdy (although it was at least as sturdy as my Bosch or Kitchenaid). It probably doesn't matter, and I probably was reading too much into it, but it pushed me to the other two as I am a big fan of build quality and the other two just felt rock solid and from an energy perspective, I figured it probably meant they were slightly better insulated. I think this is what the vendor was saying who said the Miele felt better built than the Wolf. If anything, though, the Wolf L series door felt even more over engineered (in a good way) than the Miele, but for all practical purposes that aspect was a tie.

The other thing that pushed me to the Wolf was Wolf customer service. I think all high end appliances can have issues for some people, so it is key how that will be handled. Miele is probably good about it, but I have first hand experience with Wolf as my cooktop is a wolf and it had a minor issue which was mostly cosmetic that I wasn't even planning to have fixed since it was being very picky and not only were they willing to fix it, but they pushed me to have it fixed when they easily could have either been neutral or fought it.

There is a thread on here about an error code issue they had on some e-series ovens, but again the people on that thread seem happy and to be well taken care of.

(Again this isn't to say Miele won't do the same - I just know that Wolf treated me well).

So far we love it. I can't believe how quickly it preheats. Much faster than my little Bosch (to my surprise) and in much less time than my previous Kitchenaid did - probably half the time or less (their top of the line dual fuel range). I think it took about 15 minutes to get to 450, but at most 20 minutes.

Anyway, thanks again for the advice and again as of now it seems to me that this was a great choice, but one in which there was no such thing as a bad choice.

Phew! Isn't it great to have the decision-making part in the past? I am glad you're loving your new oven. Enjoy!