I'm a fan of the maintenance plans. It offers an easy way to implement a basic maintenance regime, which is useful for people who aren't full-time DBA's. Sure, you can get into trouble using the maintenance plans if you don't know what you are doing. But you can also get into trouble by NOT doing maintenance at all! Plus, it gives the new DBA an idea of the types of maintenance they can/should do. For more complex maintenance, the plans don't really offer enough flexibility but I still think they have their place.