Our five-year-old Cuisinart non-stick pan finally started getting all peely and nasty, so it was time for a new pan. I like having a non-stick pan around for eggish things, omelets especially, so the hunt began. I read a few reviews in Cooks Illustrated and Alton Brown’s Gear For Your Kitchen, and both said the same basic thing: non-stick pans wear out, so there’s no reason to buy an expensive one.
CI really liked a certain model that’s apparently not made any more, but they also like some of the Calphalon stuff. With Calphalon in the middle of a new product launch, a good bit of their old fancy stuff is now available rather inexpensively, especially the old Commerical line. The Commercial line is really nice anodized aluminum with a wonderful non-stick coating and the pans carry a lifetime warranty so when the coating eventually flakes off, I can just send it back (to Ann Arbor no less!) and get a new one. We got ours last week and I’m loving it so far. If anything, it could be a touch bigger to make it a bit more general purpose, but for omelets, it’s just right.