My view is pretty much the same although I certainly feel that there is a definate place for a good slow cooker compared to stove top. The fact is that you have to have pretty good flame control to leave anything on a flame unstirred for say overnight. So there's no crust and stirring is just on a "whilst your passing" basis rather than needing to check.

We use the slow cooker around twice a week during the winter and once a week in summer. It's ideal mate is the Zoji rice cooker for long slow kormas and curries. Basically you can just put everything in but I fry the pastes and then warm everything before it goes into the crock. The fact that in a better slow cooker it's a gentle surrounding heat rather than a more intense base heat, makes all the difference in my view. To be completely frank it has made the use of my sous vide bath a lot less regular ...........