My own preference is a stove that uses Coleman fuel since it is so easy to top off the tank before each trip.

I own and enjoy an older MSR Whisperlite. One of the scouts used his newish Whisperlite last weekend to heat up water and pasta sauce.

People have commented that it is nearly impossible to simmer with it, but I brought along one of those metal mesh squares with ceramic in the middel that they use in chemistry classes and put it between the stove and the pot. It worked VERY well. We simmered the sauce for 15-20 minutes without any burning or scorching. Bought them from sciencelab.com. Search using the word "guaze".

If you've got the cash, everything I've read says that the MSR Dragonfly is the best of the breed, but it is twice the price of the Whisperlite. In my view the Whisperlite with the wire/ceramic gauze does the same thing for a lot less.

Oh, and I was surprized to see that the newer Whisperlight has a glass-fabric wick that soaked up the fuel for priming. It worked very well. My 20ish year old Whisperlite doesn't have that. I myself carry a little squirter bottle of alcohol to use for priming - the bottle originally held fish "ich" medicine.

Wow 22 replys in less than 24 hours cool. Thanks for all the great info and links. I think I am leaning towards a white fuel stove but I have always wanted to make one of those POPcan stoves.

"...those cans of Sterno were reliable too..."

Yup, guaranteed to not boil anything, and take forever to heat anything. I have used a lot of them over the years, better than nothing, but not much...

"...I have always wanted to make one of those POPcan stoves..."

No reason not to make one, or several. I have made more than I can count. Some I carry and use, some got recycled, but they are easy and cheap to make, so why not spend a few evenings making one or three???

Yeah, I should have had a smiley face on that... I was realizing how far we've come with the small backpacking stoves today. The only thing Sterno did reliably was cause burns because we'd forget they were lit sometimes, especially in bright sunlight when you wouldn't see the alcohol flame and, well, you can probably piece together what happens when you pick up an aluminum can full of essentially burning napalm...

Good to keep in mind. Plenty of wood where I hike.

Does it work if the battery dies?

FOX.. not any better that a coffee can with holes in the
bottom would..and then you may as well just have a open
fire..it's the forced air from the fan that makes this
thing such a winner..

For someone starting out ...simple success goes a long way towards confidence building. Propane/Butane cannister type stoves are simple and easy...hard to not be able to get lit and cook stuff. Relatively cheap if you don't get the titanium versions. With some planning you can get pots or cups that hold the cannisters and maximize packing efficiency.
This is my choice as primary stove for my kit and I have also included a cool pop can stove with fuel...which are ridiculously lightweight, though easily damaged if abused. I'm quite fond of having a backup, but like small and lightweight even betetr so this pair works well for me. Especially since both burn so clean ...I've used Esbit stoves as backup before...they work and are cheap (always a good thing) but leave a sticky residue that can be annoying.
I have a Whisperlite too ...its got to be 20 yrs old so doesn't have the sexy new features, but works good. I should try that gauze trick metioned above.
Am considering intergrating a Kelly Kettle as the idea of cooking on top of the kettle while it heats water is pretty cool.
Better to start small rather than the opposite.

Another idea for "scorch-proofing" stoves is this:

The thing I like about this is that it has nice rounded edges and doesn't have a ceramic disk that could (theoretically) break.

Go to http://www.backpackerspantry.com and search using the keyword "scorch".

I really like the propane/butane stoves for one main reason. I'm lazy. I don't like fiddling with anything after hiking all day, I just want to open my backpack and start cooking. I remmber using the white gas stoves when I was in the scouts, they were nice, but too much fuss for me. They also only have two settings, off and blowtorch . I'm guessing the Simmerlite has solved that problem, or it would be a really misleading name.

Right now i have a Snowpeak Gigapower, but it's about as simple as you can get. Screw onto fuel container and turn the knob. You can have adjust the flame anywhere from simmer to burning a hole in your pot. No priming, no pumping, no hoses to connect or stands to setup, no nozzles to clean, etc. You don't even need a lighter, it's got a piezo start built in (highly recommended). If you live in CA and don't have to worry about low temps, look into a vapor fuel stove, they're really convienent. One drawback for a propane/butane stove is you can't check the fuel level in the container. I don't really have a problem with it, if in doubt I carry an extra cannister, it's still lighter than a bottle of white gas. Also, supposedly they fuel isn't as readily available in foreign countries, but I've never checked if that's the case.