I'm a piano player, so that colors my response. Within hands reach of my DAW, I have:
- On the desk, an Akai APC-20 and a Frontier Tranzport (great combo for Ableton, but gets some SONAR luv 2
- to the right, a stack with my Nord Electro (my main live keyboard as well) for performance input, and a Novation SL Mk II for synth input and mixing/track controls
- behind me, I have my faithful Fender Rhodes Stage Mk I...not really a controller, but a great performance input device
- to my left, I have a Roland TD-20 drum kit with some upgrades...much superior for playing in drum kit performances compared to a keyboard controller. 
Except for the Novation, I've had this stuff a long time...I really like all of it, and it's a great room too

I have one of these

and one of these

but no keyboard, unless you count

 

I'd say my main controller keyboard now is my Jupiter 80, very nice keybed.  That being said, I also have an Alesis V25, which is 2 octave, full size keys and fairly nice. The only problem I have with it is it occasionally spikes the velocity of a single note. Not sure why.

I mostly love my controller, the Akai Advance 61. I'm somewhere between a proper piano player (I use both hands) and a synth guy (a lot of the time, I only use one). I tried about 4 different boards before settling on this one, include the 61-note Novation which was a close second.
 
Things I love: the VIP software rocks - it pulls in most of the NI stuff, and the included soft synths are actually very very usable for what I'm doing (pop, rock, EDM). The knobs are smartly mapped already, which is good for me too because I don't want to spend my time programming mapping settings. Keybed is perfect for me - not too heavy (like Novation) and not squishy (like M-Audio).
 
Things I hate: sometimes it just won't play. Not sure if this is the AKAI, Windows, or Sonar. Sometimes I have to restart Windows to get Sonar to even know it's there.
 
But this is not a cheap controller. I don't play guitar, so this is where I sunk my $$.

I actually use a Peavey DPM workstation for a controller for years. It is connected with the 5 pin midi cable to a 
Steinberg midiex 8 in 8 out midi interface. Recently bought a Novation MKII usb 49 keyboard, which uses Automap software to communicate with Sonar except when I run Sonar in Adminstrator Mode, I think Sonar has a nasty bug because some of my 32bit plubins won't work unless I run Sonar in this mode, then my Novation controller transport doesn't work with Sonar! My Novation controller is a really good controller/control surface.

I am a keyboard player and I am very happy with all of my controllers. I use a Korg Kronos, a Roland RD-700GX and Jupiter-80.

I use an Alesis Q61, it's pretty much just the keys, no other controller hoodly doodly and I gotta say, that's made it last longer for me than any other controller I've tried. It just does what it does and feels great. I've cycled bunches of other controllers through the rig too: BCR, BCF, Novation Zero MKII, A few M-Audio controllers, a Novation LaunchPad (still got that one).
 
I like to keep the keyboard and the assorted other controllers separate for just this reason. I'd rather reach for a different box to do all my volume, filter, warp gate business and know my piano roll is rock solid than have to deal with a dead key(s)