I sold my original brick and went out and bought the silver package deal. It comes with Daxter, Family Guy: The Freakin' Sweet Collection (Five episodes), and a 1gb memory stick (Nice upgrade from the original 32mb my original PSP came with).
Personally I find it to be a big upgrade, I like the reduced weight, and the rounded edges are a big plus. On the original one the edges would rub my fingers due to the way I hold the system, and it was very annoying. Also the choice to move the wireless switch was a huge plus, I was always hitting that stupid thing beforehand.
The screen is a bit brighter, which isn't a huge deal considering the black level is still pretty bad. It is also, at least to me, noticeably sharper than the original PSP. The response time of the lcd also seems a tad faster, but I wish they would have gone with a faster panel to reduce the trailing that still happens with darker images.
The battery life is about the same, but it does charge quicker than the original ones.
I'm not sure if its just me or not, but I think the load times are quicker on the new system. I don't have the original one to compare them so I can't confirm this.
The TV out is a nice feature, and it doesn't look all that bad, similar to watching a SD DVD. It is a nice option for playing games if you're at home and sit reasonably close to your TV. You do have to buy the cable to use it unfortunately (I think it would really tip the scales for some people if they were to include it). The ear-buds are also not included in the new package, if you care about that, I thought the original ones were terrible anyways.
Overall its a good buy for newcomers, and if you can offload your old one, I would say it is worth getting.
I would recommend getting Jeanne D'Arc with it, really great turn-based RPG. So far I like it more than FF: Tactics, and I've been playing it almost non-stop since I picked it up.