My own preference is a stove that uses Coleman fuel since it is so easy to top off the tank before each trip.

I own and enjoy an older MSR Whisperlite. One of the scouts used his newish Whisperlite last weekend to heat up water and pasta sauce.

People have commented that it is nearly impossible to simmer with it, but I brought along one of those metal mesh squares with ceramic in the middel that they use in chemistry classes and put it between the stove and the pot. It worked VERY well. We simmered the sauce for 15-20 minutes without any burning or scorching. Bought them from sciencelab.com. Search using the word "guaze".

If you've got the cash, everything I've read says that the MSR Dragonfly is the best of the breed, but it is twice the price of the Whisperlite. In my view the Whisperlite with the wire/ceramic gauze does the same thing for a lot less.

Oh, and I was surprized to see that the newer Whisperlight has a glass-fabric wick that soaked up the fuel for priming. It worked very well. My 20ish year old Whisperlite doesn't have that. I myself carry a little squirter bottle of alcohol to use for priming - the bottle originally held fish "ich" medicine.