Personally, I'd stick with the brass. We are planning on changing our entry doors to levers like on all our french doors though.
Brass it timeless. Anything else will look dated someday. I know many don't like brass now, but that doesn't change it from being timeless.

It depends on where you live and what the style of the house is too.

In the Northeast, shiny brass has been the finish "in style" for most of 200 years (at least it started shiny:)

If you live in the south west, darker finishes have long been popular.

Personally, I think ORB is here to stay because now that a lot of people have it, they are not going to change all 2 dozen doorknobs in their house if it is no longer the trend. It may not be the most popular finish at a given moment, but it will stay as an option. Most houses retain the door hardware they were built with.

I know this isn't an answer, but just some things to think about. How does Shiny or Antique brass, brushed nickel, or chrome go with the style of your house and what you have in it?

Yep, what pal said. I just changed out our brass door hardware in the kitchen to ORB, but I have an Arts & Crafts/Mission kitchen - brass just didn't coordinate! I'm on the fence as to whether to change it out in the rest of the house, either would work. I really like ORB right now, but as has been said, brass is timeless and I like it too.

When I built a year ago, I had ORB door hardware as well as plumbing fixtures installed. I think it's replaced shiny brass. Nickel has also become popular if you like silver~the old chrome replacement. ;o)

I live in a colonial in New England with dark hardwood floors and all dark hardwood trim - nothing like the fancy homes I see here. I cannot stand brass so after living in the house for 10 years, last year I replaced all those brass knobs with levers in a venetian bronze finish. Not sure how my finish differs from oil rubbed bronze, but they look so much better with the house than the yucky old knobs!

I plan on changing all of our knobs to a darker finish...most likely orb. We have three different finishes right now (glass, brass and nickel).

In my last house we had replaced all doorknobs with brushed nickel and it looked very nice. That finish is a very popular choice today. We recently moved and in our new house we chose antiqued brass levers and love them. I don't think it matters so much what color or finish you choose as long as you stay consistent throughout your home. Light fixtures and other hardware don't have to match exactly but should flow well with whatever choice you make.

Thanks for all the responses! We are in the south (NC). In terms of real estate values shiny brass is considered to be something that dates the house as we are competing with all the new construction around us.

Our current hardware is also not the highest quality brass - I think it's builder grade from when the house was built in 1993 and it's pretty beat up.

We have been replacing all the brass light fixtures with ones with a dark finish. We have a mix of finishes around the house mostly dark but our bath hardware is chrome/nickel. In our master bath remodel we are probaly doing polished or satin nickel faucets/fixtures. I find that unless you pay for very high quality hardware shiny chrome, nickel and brass tends to look cheap.

I wanted to do antique brass but DH would have none of it. So we ended up with ORB.