I have owned 2 GF4 cards in the last 9 months.
I have owned:
Chaintech A-GT61 GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB "Special Edition" w/ black pcb and gold ramsinks, fan shroud, & back panel
Asus V9280TD GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB AGP 8x (overclocked to Ti4600 specs now, 300/600)
Both have served me flawlessly. CChaos makes a very valid point, most name-brand manufacturers put out a good card. The only one I have heard even rumors of massive problems is with the new Abit Siluro OTES models. They use the new heat-pipe setup that Abit is introducing as a stock option. I think the problems were along the lines of overheating if the case cooling wasn't a little toward overkill. Most of the people that were having problems were people with watercooling rigs and no case fans to reduce noise levels.
Look into it yourself. Other than that model, I haven't heard anything bad about a GF4. Hell, the 128MB GF4 Ti4200 can be gotten for $125 shipped (give or take a couple bucks). I love my Asus and wouldn't trade it for anything.
Another card, on the budget end, that I have coming in the mail right now is the new Sapphire Radeon 9100 128MB. I picked it up for $85 shipped via UPS ground. It is scheduled to arrive on Friday and I will most likely be testing it on Saturday when I get back in state. We will be running Neverwinter Nights, UT2k3, and Red Faction on it, so that should give a fair comparison on how the card holds up to my GF4.
If you want to wait a bit, I will drop an update for ya on which card is good/bad....The Asus rocks! That said and done, now to wait for the Radeon