Has anybody tried dripping wvo onto an already-burning fire in a wood stove? Or maybe onto a steel plate positioned above the burning wood? Seems like this would be such a simple, foolproof way of burning the oil.

Yup, even posted some pictures on the biodieselpictures website. Two problems though: As your oil supply warms up, it gets thinner and the drip rate increases, making the fire hotter, making the oil thinner, increasing the dribble rate, hotter, faster, hotter.....

The solution is to limit the supply and/or watch it closely (ie, don't get distracted and walk away from it).

second problem: if dripping on a hot plate, the burning oil by itself won't keep the plate hot enough to burn cleanly. "Cool" burning WVO is acrid and anyone downwind will be bothered. Keep it dripping into a HOT wood fire and it'll do just fine.

The key to burning oil cleanly is to pre-heat the oil and AIR. The Turk burner does both. So does a diesel engine.