Well-built, very good fit-and-finish, sturdy parts.  
The carafe is significantly thicker and heavier than its competitors', and is accurately marked on both sides.  
The in-line charcoal filter is a convenience for those of us with chlorinated water.
Attractive appearance.

Brewing temperature at the "shower head" plateaus at ~185F, too cool for really good coffee.
Difficult to fill; reservoir opening is narrow, and there are no external water markings.
Very sensitive to scaling; coffee quality declines long before "Self Clean" light goes on.

This machine's biggest drawback, to me, was the too-cool brewing temperature.  I was able to remedy that with a simple modification (see forum message here: http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/606374).  It still wouldn't meet SCAA standards, but the coffee is much better.

I also noticed the coffee quality deteriorating about 3 months after purchase.  I changed the charcoal filter, without improvement.  Running a cleaner-descaler through it on the "Self Clean" cycle made the coffee tasty again.  I find that cleaning-descaling and changing the filter every 2 months works well (of course, YMMV depending on the quality of the water).

I have only used paper filters, and after reading others' comments (about filters clogging and the funnel overflowing) I am not tempted to use the gold one.  The unit does best with a grind on the fine side of the "auto-drip" scale.  

The "1-4 Cup" button works well.  The manual has nonsense about "double-heating the water for hotter coffee"; but what the unit actually does is to cycle the brewing on and off to prolong the time the grounds are in contact with the hot water.

Some might want a thermal carafe, but we drink our coffee immediately after brewing, so the glass carafe is not a problem for us.  We've also noticed that setting the warmer to "Low" keeps the coffee pleasantly hot, and it doesn't deteriorate nearly as much as it does on higher settings during the 20 minutes (at most) we have it there.

So would I buy one again?  Well, the coffee is not as good (even after my mod) as that from my brother's Technivorm, and if I'm feeling flush I might get one of those.  If my unit incinerates itself I won't buy another one!  Otherwise, considering that one can buy 3 of these and 2 pounds of good beans for the cost of one Technivorm, I might buy one again.

The puzzling thing is: by insulating the hot water supply tube and providing an external water gauge, Cuisinart could have made this a better-performing and easier-to-use machine for a modest cost--but they didn't.

From Kitchen Kapers, which provides first-class service and easy returns.  I tried, and returned, a Capresso MG-500 before buying the Cuisinart; the brew temp was way too high and the coffee tasted scorched.  The Kitchen Kapers staff was very friendly and helpful.