I distinctly remember the various WBFS loaders as being rather crap- installing the various bits to get them to even work was a pain in the ass and poorly documented, and even then the loaders seemed to like not working.

The emus always worked well for me, though.

the MPlayer-ce port works well for me, albeit you cant use video that exceeds 640x480 in resolution without lag problems, but it plays dvd RIPS and XVID encodes just fine.

Agree with the lack of interesting uses for an exploited/modded Wii. I went the route of physical mod, really just as a side project to see if I could do it. Added an external hdd formatted to wbfs for storing games, installed a bunch of emulators and other software. Honestly, the only thing I still use is the hdd since it lets me keep the disks in the closet and to occasionally copy a friend's game. After about 2-3 weeks of messing around with some of the new stuff, the Wii has returned to it's original function: coming home from the bar and gambling on games of virtual golf.

Most of the Wii-based media "solutions" are more easily (and better) handled with an old laptop (or cheap new one) and a bluetooth dongle.

I use mine mainly to play imports. My Wii games are split roughly evenly between PAL, US and Japanese. Although I doubt my use case is actually that common.

I don't think I own enough Wii games (around 20 just now) to justify buying an external drive for ripping purposes, and I can't really see that changing.