Came across this article regarding Opera - appears to be pretty even-handed and has a nice conclusion regarding the price of Opera:
"The only real negative for Opera is that unlike rival browsers, you have to pay for it (or deal with advertisements that become part of your interface). While $40 may seem like a lot compared to free, it's a small cost indeed when put in the context of your entire computing life.
"If you use a laptop, you probably shelled out at least $1,000 for your system. If you have high-speed Internet access, that's another $30 per month or more.
"Adding $40 to significantly improve the tool that lets you experience the outside world seems more than reasonable."
Original Article