My original experience with esbits was also quite negative. I couldn't get 16 oz of water to boil with the typical esbits stove or the vargo ti stove. part of the problem was my pot was too far away from the esbits. I recently learned that distance between the esbits and pot bottom will impact performance significantly as does what sort of windscreen you use.

A well design esbits system such as the Caldera Cone with the optional esbits holder can bring 16oz of water to boil in 7-8 minutes using less than 15grams of fuel or do two smaller boils using 15 grams (one tablet). A few other high efficiency esbits stoves mentioned in the esbit section of my recommended stoves page.

--mark