If you do think you'll use the pellet drop, CampChefs is the best I've had (out of too many pellet grills). Most of the others have a door you put a bucket under, but it's hard to get the bucket in position to not throw a bunch of the pellets everywhere else as the bucket is right up against the legs or grill body, etc. The CampChef has a nice little chute and a bucket hanger on the chute, so pretty much all the pellets go where you want them. It was nice, but I don't drain pellets often, so I think I personally used it twice in 5 months.
Here's some full disclosure to actually try (not very hard) to talk you out of the CampChef. The only real drawback I found to the two CampChefs I've had was the sturdiness of the build. It feels a little flimsier than other grills. The Woodwind was a lot more solid than the SmokePro STX I had, but it's still one of the thinner material products. That being said, I had zero issues with either and never had to test CampChef support for anything. Had I not made the SmokeFire mistake, Id likely still be happily using my Woodwind. I thought about getting another one, but decided I wanted an American made 'lifetime' pellet grill now.
When I first got the Woodwind, the dial on the controller seemed backwards to me like it scrolled the wrong direction, that's pretty trivial and subject to everyone's own expectations as well. You get used to it pretty quickly and then no longer think about it. I never had WiFi problems, but that's a very subjective area as it's all dependent upon your signal strength where the grill will be and it's hard for a company to test against every router out there.
After trying it a couple times, I never used the slide and grill, so I bought and modified a standard flat drip pan. I just had to cut the right side leg or lip (for lack of a better term) to fit the slide and grill rails. The stock tray works fine and can be foiled if desired, I just wanted the smoother surface that would drain better and used the SearBox if I wanted a sear at the end of the cook.
If you don't expect something built like a tank and think you will like or adjust to the pellet grill smoke profile, I think the CampChef's are pretty hard to beat in that price range. There's others that will be of similar performance, but I don't think anything is going to be really any better from a performance standpoint. For exmample, the RecTeqs look like they are going to be more solid, but have fewer features. Like someone mentioned earlier, there's lots of trades. CampChef chooses features over heavier steel. You have to do something to make a profit at $1000, there's a reason the MAKs, Yoders, and Cookshacks are $1500+.
Hope that helps versus just being a long ramble.
