The way I look at cooking whole (unground) meat is that you only really need to get the outside of it up to the "safe" food temperature to kill the bacteria. The inside has been sealed inside the animal and will not be tainted by harmful bacteria unless you've been mucking around inside of it. That's one reason not to stick a probe into your meat until the outside has been brought past pasteurization temperature. And of course that also means that ground meat is a bacterial playground and should be pasteurized throughout.
This sous vide stuff is interesting, but I wonder how close you can get to the results by using lower that traditional BBQ smoker (or even kitchen oven) temps, and then searing the meat afterwards. Talking just for meats here, as I realize that the sous vide is able to be used on many other foods that wouldn't go on the grille so easily, like eggs, veggies, etc. I often see warnings about cooking at too low of a temperature, I suppose to avoid promoting bacterial incubation for too long, but temperature should be temperature whether it is hot smoky air or hot water with the food sealed in a bag.
