I got one for $40 and don't regret it. It's pretty nice once you "hack" it. I've been playing a lot of the wrestling games, War Zone in particular.
FYI I found that Sandisk thumb drives work a lot better than other brands for whatever reason. Also (unless something's changed) there is a memory and/or game limit. I can use 64GB drives with about 200 games fine, but 128 GB sticks or more than about 200 games won't work, it'll just go to the standard PS1 Classic lineup.