I was looking at that in a recent issue of BYO. For $890 I think you get a pretty good deal. An electric boil kettle with controller, and pump and counterflow chiller. Trying to piece together a full recirculating set up like this would cost you all of that.
Downsides- no idea of what quality the components are. You're limited to 5 gallon batches. This thing might not be available for a while. The Element might be underpowered and take a long time to boil.
Those are just guesses though. I'd like to hear some feedback from actual users.