[tptacek]

If you have a toaster oven, I strongly recommend the toaster oven. They come up to temp fast, and they have a much tighter band of temperatures than an oven, which is always +15/-15 from your set temperature. Holding a tight, low temperature is all you're asking from the oven, and toaster ovens are built to do that (ironically, they fucking blow at making toast).

[ahepp]

What are the reasons traditional ovens have such a wide band here? It seems like with modern technology one ought to be able to cut that down a bit. Is it just physically infeasible based on the size of the space to be heated? Or is it tremendous cost pressure for consumer goods? Or something else?

[cthalupa]

A variety of things. More space is definitely harder to heat evenly, especially without airflow coming from something like a convection oven, or keeping relative humidity very high, such as in a combi/steam oven, but a lot of it is cost pressure. If you go far enough up market to Miele, Wolf, etc., you can find ovens that will keep a much more consistent temperature.