This posting is a counterpart to the wonderful thread here on how to add a PID to the Strega and perhaps, lower the brew temperature.
I was a bit timid about doing simple surgery on my fairly new Strega, so realized my naive modification plans using my old, 20th century Salvatore Famosa. In doing so, I measured temperatures at every point I could think of...pretty much done with this project, except to add a better PID.

My measurements of the Strega, pretty much confirmed what folks have been writing here and despite the wide swings produced by the simple thermostat-contolled heaters, the grouphead temperature remained reasonably stable. But, I like my brew water temperature on the highish side (199-201deg F). Given my reluctance to even do simple mods inside the Strega, I did a simple mod on the outside for passively increasing the grouphead temperature. I added a cozy:

It's a soft, polyethylene (I think) bit of pipe insulation that covers about half the circumference of the cylindrical grouphead. This "mod" kicked the ghead temperature up about 10deg F. I now can do the type of extractions I find tasty. Not a big discovery and I'm sure I could find many threads doing the same thing. I took my cues from those who pop heatsinks onto their Pavoni heads. Those do look cool.

I'm now trying to figure out an inexpensive way (do not want to shell out for a Scace) to measure brew water temperature, aside from what my palate tells me. (Yes, I do lose some chrome pulcrtitude..... )