We purchased an Artesian Cypress Point in Dec. 07. The tub has performed well for us. We had one minor 'adjustment' that had to be performed by the dealer to the door of the filter area. I did a lot of shopping around and thought that I got a lot of features for my $ with the Artesian Platinum line.
I had a D1 Nautilus prior the the Artesian. I liked the control panel on the D1 much better than the Artesian. The Artesian cannot be programmed to have the 3 main pumps come on for filtering for more than two 5 minute intervals every day. You can program the Artesian to have the circ pump run for 24 hours per day. With the D1, you could program the main pumps to filter for up to 8 hours a day if you wanted, plus you had the 24 hour circ. pump as well. Hence, I don't feel the the water quality is quite as good with the Artesian as it was with the D1.
I don't remember exactly how much I paid, but it was in the $9k range with ozonator, light package, cover, lifter, steps, starter chems, delivery, etc.