You know, I think toasters need to be improved upon. In a standard two-slot toaster, if you want to toast more than two slices of bread, the second run of toast doesn't come out as dark as the first set because the toaster is still hot from the previous toasting. This is less than acceptable because of the archaic shut off mechanism: a mechanical bi-layer metal strip. As the toaster heats up, the metal on one side of the strip expands more than the metal on the other side, thus bending the strip. After it reaches a certain temperature, the strip will have bent far enough to activate a switch, thus turning off the power to the toaster and popping up your toast. It's a great idea, but the flaw is that the metal strip is already pre-heated for the second run of toast, so your next pieces of toast don't cook long enough - thus they get popped up prematurely.

In order to improve this, the toaster needs to sense the temperature of the toast itself, not the toaster ambient temperature. Or perhaps an optical BRS ("Brownness Recognition System") could 'see' when the toast is done. In any case, toaster manufacturers should not be resting on their laurels - there is a lot of work yet to be done. Ooh, better yet: if your house was pre-wired with in-wall USB outlets, you could just plug in the toaster to the wall, and not only would the connector supply power to the toaster but provide feedback to a home automation system with the BRS data. The automation system would then tell the toaster when to deactivate, based upon a user-programmable profile (different family members could have different settings, based on how well they like their toast done). Thus, you would never have inferior toast again.   =)