Cooking with alcohol takes some practice. I've built dozens of different sizes and designs. Most of them with some sort of apparatus like a "simmer ring" to control the flame. The reason I came back to the penny stove is because, it operates with the principle of heating the alcohol inside the stove, thus creating more vapors and pressurizing the fuel, inside. The penny acts as a regulator, releasing excess pressure to keep the flame at a consistent level. To turn the flame down you drop a simmer ring on it which pushes the flame inward and away from the edges of the stove. This cools the aluminum, in turn cooling the alcohol and reducing the vapors and pressure pushing the fuel out.

Nothing against using what your comfortable with, but alcohol stoves don't deserve most of the criticisms that folks apply to them.