I gotta say I've been amused at the way you old stove vs new stove guys have been going at it all winter. It's a tough argument to sustain in one way, as the positives and negatives of the 2 types of stoves are accepted and not in dispute here. It's more a matter of which set of parameters you'd rather live with.
I do think however that with this absolutely brutal winter we are having, some of the characteristics of these stoves are amplified. Particularly the burn time issue. I've got an EPA certified stove; Quadra-fire 3100. I love it. Had it 20 years now. Never had to clean the chimney. (Of course I check it!) I like the positives. There IS a negative, and that's the burn time. I'm also away for 8-10 hours a day and unless I load it with hickory or white oak, I'm starting with newspapers and kindling when I get home. After 20 years, that's routine for me, so no big deal.............depending on the temp. 25 degrees or more, the house is still toasty. If the temp only gets up to 10-12 dgrees all day I have a choice of the house being 56 or the oil burner kicking on sometime in the afternoon. Would I like a longer burn time this year? Absolutely! Same for all of these below zero nights. But it's a good stove otherwise and that shortcoming isn't enough to make me go out and buy another one. I'll be the first to admit that in a winter like this, the longer burn time of an older stove is a huge advantage. But in a milder winter, the difference in burn times is not as important.
Now one thing about burn time is that it's kind of hard to define. What the stove companies come up with in their labs has little to do with how they perform in all of our homes. There's so many variables. How cold is it outside? Any wind? How old/insulated is your home? What wood are you burning? Some of these companies likely stretch their burn time estimates. Simply having some hot coals is not the same as throwing heat. I have a kind of simple definition of effective burn time: the point at which the stove is no longer throwing enough heat to prevent the house temp from dropping. Add in some of the above mentioned variables and that burn time is going to be all over the map. At 5 degrees the stove may still be burning, and throwing plenty of heat for a 30 degree ouside temp. But you've reached the point where you need to add wood or your losing indoor temp.
OK, I know I'm rambling on here. Another one of my long winded posts, and I haven't had a single beer tonight.