Ian,
I have a Fireplace Extrodinaire Elite 33 and love it. It sits flush with the opening of the fireplace which is aesthetically very pleasing, but the downside is that it is useless without the blower. I believe the minimum hearth depth requirement was 14". I had to extend mine, and I used fabricated hearth stones from my local stone yard. They are cast, dyed concrete that resemble natural stone. The come in a variety of colors and I cut them with a masonry blade and laid them using regular brick mortar. It was not hard to find a color that looked good, and it really reduced the amount of work to extend the hearth.
It has a very large fire box (the front section will take up to a 24" log) and I have no problems getting a solid 8 hour burn time. I can even go a little longer with good wood and good loading and still have plenty of hot coals to easily get the fire going again when I get up in the morning or home from work. My house is about 1800 square feet, and even when the outside temps are single digits, I usually don't have a problem maintaining mid 60's inside.
On paper, the efficiency of this unit was near the top of other units I considered. I also looked at the PE summit as well as a unit from Quadrafire. I like the dual doors on my unit and the air wash works extremely well (all my friends with inserts always have filthy glass, mine rarely needs cleaned). If I could change anything, I would refine the air intake damper a little, but this is a pretty nit-picky gripe. I think that the exact model I have no longer exists and has been updated, but I am not sure. Overall, I would highly recommend it.
Adam