chadley,
From what I've read on the hearth forum, starting sometime in the year 2014, anyone owning an OWB that is not EPA phase 2 compliant will not be able to sell their property with an operational conventional OWB on it. In other words- if you plan on staying on your property for a significant period of time, than a conventional one may be alright for you, as you will be grandfathered in, but the OWB will need to be removed should you decide to sell. If the OWB is the only heat source, it's removal will obviously diminish property value a bit. They are saying that the implementation of the program will be nation wide. I'm not buying it totally until I see something from the EPA. I've sent them 2 email's in the last two weeks and I've not received any response.
Sorry for that ramble.
Back to your post now. Gassers, and from what I've read it doesn't matter much what brand, will burn around 40-45% less wood than the average conventional OWB, as much as 60% less than very inefficient OWB's, and about 30-40% less than some of the very efficient ones. They will burn wet wood, however efficiencies suffer a lot- but that is true of a conventional OWB also, and cleaning frequencies will be shortened with wet wood. Cleaning mine takes just under 10 minutes/week of my time. The gasification process has been around for nearly 200 years, and there are OWB company's out there that started making them back in the '90's, so the technology is not new, as the European's they have been using gassers(usually indoor ones) for more than 3 decades.
I think it's awesome that people are considering renewable resources to heat their homes. I started out with a conventional OWB about 5 years back, then moved to a gasser last year. At a month shy of 50, hauling 45% less wood home is much easier on these old bones, and although my neighbors had never complained about my conventional OWB, I feel much better that I'm not sending smoke in their direction anymore. I'd now never consider anything other than a gasser. Burning 5 or 6 cords/year is a lot better than going through 9 or 10....or 11. But, hey, I'm gettin' old.