Apart from extended keepwarm because better sensors (?), my experience with higher end rice cookers is they're designed to vent moisture better, less cleanup for frequent activity always good. I think there's also satisfaction knowing you're having the best reasonable quality of (for me white) rice, since a bunch of japanese engineers spent decades making it in a sense, a solved problem. That's just like... nice to think about, or not worry about (even if placebo effect) whenever eating rice, which is always. I'm the least buyitforlife kind of guy, not interested in $200 pants or $400 boots or $800 jackets that last a decade, because I don't like dealing with wear and tear after a few years, but as long as the rice cooker is working, which they seem to for like 10 years, you're getting best rice. It's a nice reoccuring feeling for $40 a year.