I pay for .Mac now and I'd say value is border line - each year I wonder if it's really worth it but each year I do end up renewing. For me the curent .Mac service is justified mostly by the simplicity and integration rather than the raw functionality: simple backup and syncing (between Macs) of contacts, calendar, bookmarks, keychains (incl. 1Password), mail accounts and rules etc; simple publishing of photos from Aperture; simple vnc ('Back to My Mac'); easy storage on iDisk, etc. I quite expect most of that can be done more cheaply in other ways, but I'm sure it can't be done as easily.
MobileMe is a different matter and the OTA syncing to iPhone completely pushes it into the 'decent value' category for me. I'd like it a lot if I never had to connect my phone to a computer via a cable again and everything was kept 100% in sync, 100% of the time, OTA. This at least gets us part way there. Podcast syncing over 3G and/or Wifi would I think be the next best step, although complete wireless syncing with iTunes would be required for the solution that I'd really like to see.