If I ever wanted to write down the issues I have with Maven, I couldn’t do a better job than Charles Miller’s post. Maven solves problems that I didn’t have by introducing me to a whole set of new problems that I also didn’t have.
Ant is certainly not perfect (though you can learn to use it effectively) and I remain convinced that a better solution to Java build problems can be found. However, if Maven is the answer, then we are asking the wrong question.