There are many other ways to toast bread, you can place it in an oven you will have similar results as using a toaster oven. Still using the oven you can use the broiler (salamander) and place the bread as close to it as possible. One drawback to this method is you have to flip the bread over half way through.  

 

Any source of flame could be used to toast bread, you could use any stove burner in this case electric works better than gas but either will do. If you have a lot of time you can use a blow torch and carefully brown the the bread to perfection.  

 

The ideal bread to toast should be a few days old as fresh bread is often to soft and will not toast properly.

 

Making Toast

To be honest the simplest method is to use a toaster and the setting that works for the type of toast you want.

Don't trust the toaster, different brands and styles can produce different results. Some toasters dark setting may be really dark and the light setting might only warm the bread.

Try out the settings on the toaster and find out which works best for you.

The Toaster oven is not really a replacement for a toaster, although it can toast bread, and does do a better job on things like frozen waffles and frozen pancakes. In general toaster ovens will not color the bread the same way as a toaster. What this means is that dark toast will be very dry and not really what one wants to eat. A medium toast, where it would be nice golden brown in a toaster will probably have no color or just a little browning more like a light piece of toast.