I've been running a Transcend 64GB SSD (ca. $200, PATA -- not high-end, definitely) in my laptop for 10 months. It's on all the time, except when I suspend it for transportation. It is running Ubuntu, and I've got a current uptime of 30 days. I'm a software developer; I download and install betas of OpenOffice, I upgrade Netbeans and Eclipse regularly, update and build software (including one work project that's over 1GB built), and generally trash the hard drive. I haven't had any trouble with it, at all.
I also installed an OCZ 64GB SATA SSD in my wife's laptop since mid-June (so, 4.5 months). Hers is more often in sleep mode than in use, since she has a separate, work, laptop. She uses it for writing, homework, browsing, and so on -- light duty. No problems there, either.
Neither laptop is configured to run /var/log or /tmp in RAM, or anything fancy. Both are configured with ext3 (although mine has a BTRFS partition, for play) with normal journalling.
I'm happy with mine. I don't notice the speed increase, if there is any; I mostly went this route to (a) reduce the heat, (b) reduce power consumption, and (c) reduce noise. My wife's Acer Timeline is particularly silent, as the CPU fan never comes on. I don't know if I'd put SSDs in my server; HDs are too ridiculously cheap, and I don't need extra speed for my modest music/file/web server uses. But, so far, I've been entirely satisfied with their reliability.
I do back both machines up nightly, just in case.