There is no debate, if your talking about the stock WSM water pan being a piece of POOPIE. Why create a cooker that can hold 240* for 10 hours or more and team it with a water pan that goes 3-4 hours.
Now Gary might chime in, rightfully so, that this argument goes away with using sand instead of water, but I have not personally tried that yet.
So I got my Brinkman charcoal pan delivered just 3 days ago. Phil just might be getting one too (shhh. He doesn't know).
So this T day, I'll have both a cooker, AND a waterpan that can go for 10 hours unattended.
Bill bought us a couple Brinkman water pans to put in the WSM.
I got my own drop in mod. I had an old plastic garbage pail that a squirrel decided to chew a hole in the bottom of. I cut the entire bottom off the pail(after washing real well) with a sawsall and it fits over the WSM with about a 4 inch airspace around it and it comes up about an inch above the rim of the center section. Works great for a windbreak, and i'm sure will come in handy during the winter.