Sorry for the late response, Nola, I haven't checked this thread in a while. Long story short, I've built 7 pedals (and modded a Boss SD-1) since I started this thread, and they all do what they're supposed to do. I've been sticking with vintage pedal clones so I really don't have any basis of comparison versus the originals other than youtube videos - not really a great A/B source. I have been very pleased with all of them, especially the Rat clone and the Octavia clone I just finished - that Octavia is badass and the Rat, although a slightly different type of effect than the Octavia, is also awesome.
But I will say that, for my purposes, they have been far less expensive than the actual pedals - I just got a DIY klon centaur kit for $58.50, starting that one later this week, and the original can be found for around 10x that if you're lucky. I generally don't do any that you can go to your local shop and pick up new in the box but I would imagine that the kits may be less expensive depending on the pedal you're doing.
I would say, if you're half decent with a soldering iron, give it a shot. Start out looking through the kits at
BYOC as I feel they have a slightly better set of instructions for their kits, especially if it's your first build, and read through the descriptions. They have a few kits that would be good for a first-time build that sound great; I started with BYOC's 250+ kit, using the parts for the MXR circuit, and it wasn't disappointing. Now I'm an addict.