I'm True Neutral on the Monk debate...

True: Monks can't stand up to any other class for sheer power (Fighters fight better, Rogues stealth better, etc.)

True: Monks have a range of abilities; they can fight better than a (non-cheesed) Wizard, they can stealth better than a Fighter and they can do weird stuff better than a (non-UMD-cheesed) Rogue

Therefore, like the Bard, they fill no particular role, but can stand in if the specialist is not around...to the powergamer/optimiser this means that Monks aren't worth playing...to anyone else it just means that they're a generalist class rather than a specialist class. Sure D&D supposedly promotes the specialist (if you think of D&D as purely about the combat), but it does not make the generalist worthless by any means...that's my opinion anyway