I'm getting irritated by how some seem to imply that because something is hard it isn't worth doing. That's for the individual brewer to decide. In the auto racing world, you'd willingly pay that $100 for $10 of improvement...after all the more effective improvements have been used.
Not sure why, everyone seems to be saying the brewer should brew as he or she feels fit. If you like doing multi-step mashes. Knock yourself out. Some of us don't see that it really makes that big of a difference. Some of us do. There really isn't any hard evidence that beers using a multi-step mash are better than beers with single infusions. There's a lot of personal claims that they are. And a lot of insinuating that if you don't follow a certain process your beer is "inferior", but no hard evidence.
Keith, this wasn't directed at you, just some of the other statements throughout this thread. I felt that some don't understand why others would think the extra effort was worth pursuing.
The point I was trying to make was this: If folks are striving for the perfect beer, and have exhausted the low hanging fruit, step mashing will more than pay for the effort.