If you've got no control surface, transport controls or decent preamps, it's a must. It's an expensive toy, but an extremely helpful expensive toy if you can justify the cost. Dead easy to use, flexible and accurate. But you could buy a Behringer BCF2000 if all you wanted was a few flying faders!!!
I don't think it's better than any other control surface particularly ... there are plenty of buttons and stuff but it's basically just a toy ... something to give you tactile access to software functions. You can't do anything with it you can't do on screen, but if you're looking at control surfaces I guess you already know that.
It looks ok too, it might impress one or two clients but not in the way an SSL or even a Sony DMX-R100 will ....