Thanks for this discussion, everyone - it's been immensely helpful as I try and fix the keggle setup I inherited (the old patio burner that came w/ it all took over 6 hours to bring roughly 10 gal. to boil)!
For anyone in the PDX metro area just a reminder that the annual Holiday Ale Fest begins today at 11am. They're tapping some specials just for today, too:
http://www.holidayale.com/thursday.html
And the beer list this year looks pretty spectacular...