It's a long story as to why we had to put in granite countertops on our island and cooktop counters: In the case of the island the Gibralter sink, which had been molded into our Wilsonart Solid Surface Veneer countertop developed terrible ugly cracks in their bases and they couldn't be fixed. One option was to cut them out and put a drop in sink over the cut out. I originally wanted the integrated sink so I cut just wipe cooking debris into the sink without it catching on a rim. The cooktop Wilsonart SSV developed a crack from the heat of a wok, and couldn't be repaired. There was a class action suit against Wilsonart because the product was defective. They gave us some money a few years ago and we did nothing because we couldn't make up our minds and the sink wasn't bad enough yet!

After our kitchen faucet broke we decided that as long as we had to replace the faucet, it was time to replace the counter top (some expensive faucet replacement!)...and as long as we were doing that, we might as well replace the counter under the cooktop so I could wok to my heart's delight without cracking the counter any further.

That is probably more than you want to know.