Amen to the higher heat. I just bought a Wok cookbook so my stir-frys have started to resemble restaurant stuff.
In a Chinese restaurant they have this jet engine mounted under an iron-lined hole in the stove. A normal commercial restaurant stove makes something like 18,000 BTUs on average where your home gas stove maxes out at 12,000. On the other hand, Thermador makes a wok 'Jet burner' for commercial kitchens that makes 150,000 BTUs.
Flash cooking things is much easier with that heat; also in a chinese restaurant they have such incredibly seasoned woks (from daily use) that nothing sticks and everything cooks perfectly. I've been using my wok for 7 years and only over the past year or two has it finally developed enough seasoning to really make cooking in it fun.
Funny story: we used to go to this Chinese place in Morton Grove, IL on Dempster St. We would eat there and the food was good. Then we realized that the Chinese people who ate there (we saw very few non-Chinese eating there) ordered off a completely different menu that was all in Chinese, and their food looked different too. Unusual vegetables and dare I say unidentifiable animal products.
Pat - you may not WANT to know. STAY OFF THE BEACH, PAT!