Criterion DVD worth it?

I would say yes. I bought it this past weekend along with the 3 disc newly released (sept 2006) seven samurai. I will go ahead and tell you I own a lot of movies but the last 10 or so I've bought have been criterions, mainly because they really are worth it.

The only visual issues at all are early in the film with some of the fog does have some flickering/speckling. If you are very familiar with the film, it is *very slight* but there in the scene where the two main characters are riding into and out of the fog. I'm figuring that has more to do with the fact I'm watching it on a 16:9 HD plasma and I keep my contrast set down to about 55%. The visuals are very nice and lively though, NOT like what you see on some of the older dubs on VHS. Very nice contrasts and very sharp looking. Deeeeep blacks and Bright Whites and very clean looking. I repeat... VERY SHARP AND NICE.

Sound is great throughout. No issues whatsoever.

Extras...
-The commentary by Michael Jeck is about what you would expect... lots of technical and historical data covering the choices of lenses, scenery, composition, etc. It's an interesting commentary and informative. One other really cool feature I'd like to see done more often is there is an INDEX function in the commentary menu, with each chapter of the DVD labeled with what the commentary is discussing... for example... Chapter 15 on the scene selection is titled "Evil Omen"... in the commentary menu it's referred to as "horse imagery" because thats the topic being discussed primarily.
-There are two translations of English subtitles... havent delved too deep into that.
-trailer... not a big trailer guy, it mainly serves to show you just how awesome of a job they did with the feature length tranfer. In previous editions of ToB there was a full length white scratch running over the image about a third of the way into the left side of the film. You can see it was there in the trailer... but has been fixed for this remastered release.

***spoilers***
I have since played with my TV and the fog is fine. I will add though that the ending... looks positively astounding. The arrows are so fast and brutal and the final strike was far more effective because of the quality of image.

Hope this helps...