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I don't know how I'd use a chiminea to cook on, really. If you can explain to me how I could saute some vegetables, for example, I'd love to hear it.

A classic wood burning stove can certainly do what you want, particularly the antique models that have a flat part on top, specifically for cooking on.

A chiminea is more like a funky barbeque grill into which you can place pans or Dutch ovens or whatnot.

Alton Brown, on Good Eats, loves this sort of alternative cooking technique. For example, you need lots of heat for proper wok technique -- more heat than you can get out of normal, indoor cooktop burners. He uses an outdoor turkey deep fryer base in one episode. In a later episode, he sticks the wok directly into the coals of a Weber grill. Either way, you get all the heat you need. The only downside is that you give up the sort of fine temperature control that you can get with gas burners.