I'm trying to decide on what type of wok to get for when I get married
in a few months, and there seems to be a bit of a debate about whether
the sides of a wok should be hot or not. I was looking at this
carbon-steel wok on cooking.com:

http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=179458

There is a review on that page which says that a real wok is supposed to
get hot in the sides, and this one does not, which creates a possibility
of food-poisoning. I have also read that cast-iron woks can be good
because they heat evenly all over, including the sides (of course there
is the downside of their weight, and the fact that they are less
responsive when you want to turn down the heat).

On the other hand, I have read (in some newsgroup postings and in a
book) that the sides of a wok are *not* supposed to be as hot as the
bottom, because that way you can push certain ingredients to the side
while you are cooking other ingredients. Personally, I have never used
this technique myself, and I'm not sure why it would be beneficial. It
seems to me that if you are using certain ingredients that you don't
want to cook as long, you would just add them in later, rather than
pushing them up the sides. But maybe I'm wrong - I've only stir-fried a
few times, using a large flat pan that belongs to my mother.

So my question is, is it better to get a wok that gets hot on the sides,
or one that doesn't? And which material would be best for this purpose?
(I'm assuming cast-iron if I want it to heat all over, and carbon steel
if I want cooler sides?) My fiance has an electric stove, so I will need
something with a flat bottom.

-Jaclyn