I did have a fat PS3, but the noise out of it was unfeasibly loud - so quiet moments in games & films were ruined. I got the new PS3 when the old one kicked the bucket; and it has been great. Much quieter (though still a bit loud for my liking), and the same great performance. I watch alot of .avi's and stream things to it and its never hit a problem, and the BluRay functionality is good. As for the controller, I'm happy with the default Dualshock 3 - but I had a PS2 so I perhaps like it out of habit.
The only issue I have is not with the PS3 per se, but with developers - game updates. Too many. Too often. I understand things pop up, but there are few things worse than getting home, new game in hand, popping it in the machine and... waiting. It would be nice for it to be finished when it leaves the producer. Grumble out the way, theres a silly volume of games available, and theres bound to be something you like, and the exclusives are often fantastic and make full use of the systems power.
All in all a really good media system - although I dont get netflix or that here in NZ so i'm really only referring to local content rather than internet streamed.