I don't know what you consider ugly. We have a Panasonic and while it will never be considered a work of art, it's not obtrusive or overtly 'ugly'

We got the Panasonic FV-11VHL2 I posted a link to a picture of one mounted so you can get an idea of how it looks. Our ceiling is white, so it's not very noticeable at all and I love it, the heater is fantastic. We got it at Amazon, I'm not sure if it's cheaper elsewhere- we needed it quick so the GC wouldn't have to wait.

Here is a link that might be useful: Panasonic fan/heater/light

Would something like this recessed light/fan work?

It would at least be a pretty small "thing" up in your ceiling. :) Might be a lot more work to install, though.

Here is a link that might be useful: Recessed Light / Hidden Fan

you can get fans that look like lights now. there is not much selection on light styles, but it might look better than seeing fan grates.

Here is a link that might be useful: fan that looks like a light

We went with somthing like this. It looks pretty good to me.

Here is a link that might be useful: attractive bathroom fan

Wow, all great ideas. Thank you all so much!

I just had the recessed fan/light installed in my bathroom - it is wonderful - and very quiet. I would advise you install it with a dimmer switch. It takes a PAR30L (long-neck) bulb, which are typically quite bright. I found a full-spectrum bulb made by Reveal and it gives off very clean light.

fwiw, panasonic makes the best fans IMO.
I went with a non light, non sensor fan. As clean a grille as possoble. Paint it the same ceiling color and it's a clean look IMO

I agree with chefwong about Panasonic being clean - as unnoticeable as possible. We have them in our bathrooms. They look like perfectly flat AC vents without the little lever. Just plain grille that matches the ceiling (off-white) and you can pretty much ignore it. In our new house that we're building, the contractor got Nutone - off-the-shelf from Home Depot. (Don't get me started!) I told him to remove them as soon as I saw them. They are ugly beyond belief unless, maybe, you have nothing else on the ceiling. We will have surface lights and it will look quite ridiculous to have this really cheap white plastic bowed vent sticking down from the ceiling like a pimple next to a nice light fixture. So I'm looking for something like the Panasonic I have in my current house but I'm stumped. I want 150 cfm (contractor really went too small) but he put in 4" duct. The largest have been able to find is 130. Does anyone know of anything more powerful - but not too noisy - that will fit a 4" duct?

Another option is to put a more decorative grille over your fan, and you can find sizes that fit any opening. We found a heater vent grille that we liked better than the plastic grille that came with our fan:

JM_Seattle, that is beautiful! Did you just measure the opening and look for something that fit? How is it mounted to your ceiling? It looks a little heavy and I might be afraid of it crashing to the floor!

But it looks absolutely beautiful!

Great topic. jm_seattle, where did you find your grille? I have an older fan and the cover has cracked and I'd love to find a replacement that would fit.

I can't remember the exact details (it was a few years ago), but we had it all planned out before the fan went in (and it took a week or more to ship the cover), so we must have just looked at the specifications of the fan. We were working with a professional contractor, so we just gave him the idea and he ran with it.

And yes, they are heavy. We had our contractor install it, and I do remember him saying that he didn't trust the screws that came with it, so he put in his own (more solid) screws and anchors. And we haven't had any issues over the past 3+ years. I wish I remembered the details of what he used, but I think it's a well understood problem and my guess is there are known solutions once you have the weight you need to suspend. Any contractor (or some of the savvy folks on this forum!) would probably know the right way to do it.

We got the idea from a remodeling book at our local library, so it wasn't something we came up with, and you can probably find other examples and further details if you search around.

There are a number of vendors if you search online, but I believe we got ours from Signature Hardware.

Here is a link that might be useful: Signature Hardware

Wow, glad this post popped back up. Had no idea that there were decorative fan/light options! Was just about to order two more Panasonic Whisper Fans for our BR renos, as we are very happy with the one in our basement AND was planning to go to lighting store today to look at lights for BR, now that I've seen this, have to rethink my plans. If available in Canada, will definitely be cheaper than the Panasonic...and give me a light to boot! Mmmmm.....

Here is a link that might be useful: Pretty fan/light