Why I switched to indirect grilling — reverse sear vs. direct heat and which method actually cooks better for steak enthusiasts?

I used to always blast a ribeye on high heat with a quick sear, but after about three weeks of using the Weber Kettle's indirect setup (low 250°F in one half, sear zone in the other), my results have been night and day. The meat carries through perfectly even — no gray band under a charred surface, just edge-to-edge rare with a proper crust. I want to know: anyone else made the switch permanently, or do you still prefer direct grilling?

The entire premise of this thread is built on a false dichotomy that I'm going to be pedantic about because it matters: "direct" vs. "indirect" aren't actually opposing methods, they're different points on the same continuous spectrum of radiant heat transfer, and collapsing them into two camps creates a framing error that makes everyone argue about the wrong thing.

Reverse sear is what people call indirect when they mean low-temp oven/smoke finish with high-heat direct finalization. That's not a separate method — it's just rearranging the sequencing. The real question isn't "indirect vs. direct," it's whether you want to create an exterior crust through Maillard reaction before or after achieving target internal temperature, and what that does to moisture migration across the gradient from surface to center.

The case for reverse sear: slow heat allows collagen breakdown at lower temperatures and results in a more uniform interior because you aren't cooking against a thermal gradient (the outer 15% of the steak is always ahead of the center on direct). But — and this is where most people overstate it — reverse searing produces less surface char than proper high-heat direct because the final sear has limited time