Definitely don't give up on the inferno. I've always been able to get a great fire going in it, even with wet wood. I don't bother to use just twigs; I use small pieces of wood as well, as long as they fit in the stove. I've found a vaseline soaked cotton ball works great for fire starting. Put it at the bottom of the stove, on top of a small amount of wood, cover it with lots of wood and light it. The inferno works really well with my 900 and 1300 ml pots- mine was designed for a 1300 ml pot. I've tried down to about a 450 ml pot, but find that it is cumbersome to position. The beauty of wood heating is that you can easily get some extra hot water for a drink or cleaning up with essentially no additonal effort. 8-10 minutes from lighting the cotton ball is usually sufficient to get 2 cups of cold water to a boil. I've often kept the inferno going after cooking to enjoy the small fire for ambience. The biggest drawback of this system for me is the messy pot exterior which I need to carefully protect from the rest of my pack. However, the soot isn't all that much of a problem to (mostly) remove if I feel energetic.