I bought this at Amazon to mate up with my new Lexar Pro UDMA 8GB CF card. The reviews here were mixed, so I had a wee bit of trepidation about spending over $60 for a simple reader. I am happy to say that my misgivings were unjustified. This is a great product.
The unit itself IS a little cheap looking, but it works as advertised, and is the fastest reader I've ever seen! My first test, downloading 2.9GB of RAW and JPEG pictures just taken with my new Canon 50D, wouldn't even allow me to go get a cup of coffee before finishing! My old USB method would have allowed me not only to get a cup, but to finish it before that amount of data completed its download.
Impressive that Lexar INCLUDES not one, but two Firewire 800 cables with the unit. One is bout 36 inches; the other is a six-inch shorty.
Others who commented about the card release button feeling "sticky" are somewhat correct. It DOES feel a little tight, but I suspect that those who have had a problem with it are probably being a bit aggressive.
I am always very careful with CF cards due to their pin structure, and I don't think that this unit will have a problem if you handle it with care while only pushing the eject button slowly, and only as much as needed to get the card out far enough to retrieve.
A final note that I was lucky to have purchased the Lexar 8GB UDMA PRO card at B&H while it still had a $80 rebate offer. It's now expired, but I suspect that UDMA card prices will fall soon, and that makes this reader an absolute MUST if you're loading up with pics or video.
VERY happy with this purchase! Five stars.
UPDATE: Unlike other reviews here, I have daisy-chained this reader with my Firewire800 G-Drive Hard Disk without issue. I have also put it in a mix with Firewire400 peripherals and also without issue. On my Mac with OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) the icon for the reader pops up no matter where I attach the reader, either directly to a FW800 port, OR in a chain. No issues at all!