I agree that the bigger the better. You can always make less food in bigger pot. Keep in mind you can only fill it to 2/3, and with foaming foods(beans, rice etc.) no more than half-full.
For beans I actually pre-soak them overnight, and then they're ready in 15-20 minutes.
When selecting a pressure cooker pay attention to the psi - you want the high setting to be 15psi, which is a standard and according to which recipes are formulated. They're extremely fast, so even a slight difference of psi may affect your cooking drastically.
I recently discovered the wonders of pressure cookers, and cannot imagine a kitchen without one. Wrote a cookbook ready to be published, bought a T-Fal one, rewriting to include one more chapter.
America's Test Kitchen did a spot that's available on Youtube, worth checking out. There's also a website, hippressurecooking.com; not necessarily my source of recipes, but their timetables and guides were very helpful.
One thing I noticed, the new generation cookers are a lot better than those with jiggly valve; they're slightly safer and maintain all the steam inside, the latter makes a dramatic difference in the taste.
I'd also go for a SS one rather than aluminum. They're dishwasher-safe, more durable and won't react with acidic foods.
Chachp, I never used an electric one mainly due to psi difference, but 45 minutes of depressurizing sounds like an awful lot. Is it normal for all of the electric cookers? Is it because it switches to the 'keep warm' setting?
