Coming from Europe to live in Canada for a year, I never realized how much difference there is in the ovens (and appliances in general).
There is a lot to improve in the typical North American oven. First of all, the heating elements in the European style ovens are behind the enamel. The European models (if not fan-driven) may take a bit longer to heat up, but they won't have the problem of sudden heat transfer changes, since they don't really have that much infrared radiation. The oven is easier to clean, too, because of that, and the risk of the baking sheet catching fire is almost non-existent, whereas in an American-style oven, that happened during my first weeks here.
Another thing is that the European ovens have a heating element also in the upper area of the oven. This means that the oven trays can be as big as the interior of the oven, without worrying burning the food and that you can more control, since the elements can be controlled separately (most also have the grilling element, which is similar to the ones in America). The European ovens also have a seamless interior (I still don't know where the excess cleaning foam goes in the American ones, probably part of it ends up in the food later).
One last thing is the heat insulation. It barely exists here, as soon as the oven is switched on, the apartment gets hot like a poorly warmed sauna - and not only do you waste the electricity there, you double the pay if you want to switch on the A/C to remove that. Still the glass in the door is tiny and sometimes even painted with a similar pattern as a microwave door (why??!), so you always have to open the door to see if the food is ready.
Don't even get me started on the cooking platters. They, while fast, are red-hot in typical use, so imagine spilling oil on those. Instant fire. No wonder they are called burners here. And of course, the knobs to switch off are *behind*, now good luck reaching there through the flames. And since they need to be detachable for cleaning all of the stuff that leaked and through some miracle didn't burn, they are pretty unstable, too. Great combination with the tendency to catch stuff on fire.
Oh well. I guess also the ovens here are sold by the horse power, not by the usability. But yeah, let's integrate an optical sensor (and maybe a frigging laser) and fix everything else in software. It sounds much fancier than "safe", "energy efficient" or "usable".
