The trend in my area (lots of late 1800s townhouses) is for new buyers to rip out the steam heat and replace with forced air/central air. Many new buyers don't like the look of the exposed steam pipes all over the house, nor the floor-space-hogging HUGE radiators. Of course this also means opening up walls for ducts and redoing the floors where the radiators and pipes were. I grew up in a house with steam heat and, except for the knocking radiators on a cold night, loved the heat it gave off and the lingering warmth of the radiators...great for drying wet mittens and socks on a winter day, plus sitting on to warm your butt! :)

Good friends who gutted their townhouse two years ago said if they had it to do again, they'd keep the steam heat and just put in central air. They like the convenience of central a/c but hate the dry forced air and all the dust, dog hair and carpet fibers that it blows around.

We move into our 1890 townhouse in October and want to live for a winter with the current steam system to see how well it works and how high our gas bills are. Right now we're leaning toward the steam heat/central air combo.