I'll be honest, I've liked the most of the Italeri kits I've built over the years. They're like most kit manufacturers in that they have their good kit and their bad kits. My current beef with them isn't about their kits but rather kits that aren't theirs but are boxed in their boxes. Nowadays you buy one of their boxes and you don't know if the kit is a true Italeri or a reboxed Revell of Germany, MPM or AMT kit. And that can be somewhat frustrating thing at times.
They don't have all the bells and whistles like the latest Far Eastern kits and they aren't "shake-n-bake" kits. But with a little care, time and work most can be made into very fine representations of the real subject. You're going to receive a lot of comments about the kits both good and bad. My suggestion is to check the web for kit reviews (although that can be subjective, I've seen reviews of a given kit where one reviewer thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread and highly reccommends it and the next reviewer thinks it's the biggest pile of junk he's ever seen and can't reccommend it to anyone). Ask about the kits on other forums. Or just buy one or two of the kits and get them together and form your own opinion