Do you have any negative impressions of the system? Any negative impressions of the keypads?
I'm going to ramble, because I've been researching and on the fence about what to do with my lighting for almost two years. A little background: We have 2400 sq ft that has been remodeled so far. Everything is homerunned (about 36 loads) and all keypad locations have a Cat5e and 18/8 (to keep all options open). Centralite has been at the top of my list because I wanted hardwire, standalone, and a company who will help an advanced DIY'er. I also liked the simple architecture and simple published ASCII I/O.
To answer your question... I talked to a salesman at Centralite a while back and he sent me two complete sample switches (four button with engraving and the electronics). One was the "Classica" the other was "Europa".
My take on this was that they were nicer than all other DIY switches I had looked at (I can't stand the membrane style ones at all). I felt that they fell a little short of Lutron/Vantage in terms of look and certainly they don't have the huge selection of styles and finishes which is fine in our case as we're looking for mostly white anyhow.
My wife and I really didn't care for the Europa - it was too modern looking and the plate is oversized. I was disheartened as this was the latest and greatest. It does support up to 8 buttons where the Classica only supports up to four.
As mentiond, the Classica was quite nice. Simple design, normal dimensions and the layout looked clean and well proportioned. The only thing I didn't really like (though this is being a bit nitpicky) is that the single button version isn't one button of the same size as the four button - it is one big button and same for the two button. So the button sizes vary from plate to plate (assuming different button configurations). This is opposed to say the Lutron SeeTouch which has the same button size but you can have one or 8, they just stack them and the cutout is sized to fit.
In the new Worthington catalog I noticed that listed in the LiteJet section there are two new styles that oddly enough can't be found at the Centralite website. I don't have the catalog handy, but I think one was the "Mystique" and I don't remember the other. These look to be a step in the right direction (assuming you think Lutron is the right direction). One of these uses the square buttons (Like the Lutron large button keypads) and the other uses the slim buttons (stacked like the designer style keypads). From what I can make out in the picture, the plate may be screwless and has a designer touch to it with a recessed border that looks pretty darn nice. We are now leaning towards going with the slim button style. My only nitpick with these new ones is that the engraving (as seen in the picture - haven't seen it in person) looks out of place. On the square button it is off to the side (whereas it is on the button with Lutron) and the slim button again has it off to the side (whereas it is under each button with Lutron). Small things, but reason enough that we are pretty sure we will skip the engraving.
Just to throw one more thing into the mix, I got a reply from Jimmy Busby (Centralite CTO/R&D guru) and he said that the controls are basically momentary contact switches and you could use just about anything to send a signal to the controller. The reason I had asked this was I considering hacking a Lutron or some other switch to control the Centralite controller. (I should add that I'm really sold on the Centralite architecture and hardware for all sorts of reasons and really prefer to use them for the core of our lighting). He said that they had in fact done a small hack before to do this with another manufacturer (can't remember who). My impression was that it would be a bit expensive to do it this way and it would probably make more sense to just go with Homeworks if I really wanted to get this crazy.
Here's another thing - since I've already waited this long, I might have to wait until July when CBus (Clipasl) is supposed to debut in the US. Now if the price isn't right or they are not DIY friendly, then I may still consider cracking open one of their (BEAUTIFUL) saturn keypads and see if I can hack it to work with Centralite. FWIW, I've seen four button saturn's go on ebay for < 100 US, which works for me.
A couple other things worth mentioning... I'm still not sure if I'll go with Elegance or LiteJet. For the next 3-4 years, one LiteJet will handle our needs and I figure I can swap in an Elegance down the road unless Centralite decides to merge the product lines and allow chaining of additional LiteJets. I'm still trying to figure out if there is some value in the Elegance that I'm missing in the LiteJet, but considering I'm going to use an Elk M1G and CQC, I think that the Centralite will really just be a load center with a few scenes.
OOOOH - this just in. I was trying to figure out which third-party switch Centralite had hacked to get working with their stystem and visted Touchplate. Lo and behold the switches on their homepage look VERY similar to the new Centralite ones (In fact the white 8-button one is called Mystique!) and the other was the Ultra (which might be what the Centralite one was called). So I don't know what's up with this. Since they are not on the Centralite website, I'm thinking maybe Worthington just had these in their section in the catalog or maybe Centralite is OEM'ing them? The plate looks nicer in the catalog than the touchplate site (which has screws and a simple plate).
Okay, that's enough. Hope this helps!