Is the Blichmann burner worth the money?

It's entirely subjective. When I upgraded from my 5G pot to a 10G and started doing full-volume boils, I replaced my turkey fryer with an "outdoor cooker" burner. I can get 6.5G of water to a boil about as fast as I could 3.5G with my old pot/burner, and my new burner has a wind screen so I don't have to relight if the wind kicks up. I'm sure my new burner isn't as sturdy as a Blichmann, but it's strong enough for me to stand on, so I'm not too concerned about that. It's also fairly noisy, probably more so than a Blichmann (although I've never heard a Blichmann, so I can't say). It was half the price of the Blichmann, though, so since I didn't see any obvious deficiencies in it, it was hard to justify spending twice as much. I'm sure you get your money's worth when buying a Blichmann, but whether it's "worth it" is entirely up to you.

I bought a turkey burner and then bought a Blichmann after realizing how flimsy the turkey fryer was. When I got the Blichmann, the comparison was obvious. Here's a picture of both the cheap turkey fryer and the Blichmann side by side:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwynia/5333294931/

The Blichmann is considerably more sturdy than any of the turkey fryers I've ever seen. It distributes the flame across the entire area instead of just a ball of flame at the center.

Worth every penny to me.

I recommend listening to John Blichmann's appearance on Brew Strong where they talk about burners and boil. Obviously the man is proud of his product, so he talks it up. But his knowledge and enthusiasm for home brewing is what really sold me on his equipment.

I settled on buying a Blichmann burner because I hate buying equipment twice. I'd rather spend a bit more on a sturdy, long-term investment. And I thought this was the best way to go.

Its probably worth it if you wanted to eventually upgrade to the blichmann brewing stand, to keep it all modular. If you don't plan to doing a whole stand eventually, the burners from HomeDepot type sources work just fine.

And BTUs for any burner you see is dictated more from the regulator on the tank and not the burners configuration itself. Its also very difficult to compare BTUs across manufacturers because they all conduct the BTU tests slightly differently. So don't be confused.

http://www.blichmannengineering.com/brew_stand/brewstand_modular.html

If you follow that link, and click on burner data, you can get the manufacturer's description of what makes theirs better. From their description, and what I can see, you're looking at:

1. Faster boil time
2. Possibly better designed stand (don't know the other model)

From their numbers, it doesn't look like you'd save propane, merely time, so you have to determine how much that is worth to you. Before going electric I had a low cost model, likely similar to what you're talking about (~$75 with a pot). The stand was underwhelming, but not really a problem. The longer boil time was a big consideration for me.

If you have the money, my perspective is that saving time means you brew more often. On the other hand, if saving money means you get the equipment now rather than later, you might brew more now, which is also important.