I have a bike with the Sturmey XRD-8 (with drum brake) and for the price, I like it a lot. It's noisier than the Nexus, but also cheaper and comes with more brake options. I had mine for about 2 weeks when it broke... I emailed Sturmey and they shipped me all-new internals for it, and the tool to replace it, and paid shipping both ways. Since then, I've put about 150 miles on it with no complaints. If I build another city bike, I will probably get another Sturmey hub to put on it.

(EDIT) THe only complaint I have besides the noise is that the way they geared the Sturmey, you have to have a very small chainring, or a very small rear wheel... 1st gear is 1:1 and on most other hubs, 1:1 is one of the middle gears. I ran mine with a 32T chainring, and it still wasn't low enough to climb hills.