We were first time visitors to Hawaii, and I'm so glad we stayed in Kihei. It felt much less commercial over there, and our beach felt more private. The shops seem a little less pricey, and the restaurants not so hard to get into.
The condo was a good choice for our active vacation - we often left by 6 or 7 a.m. and didn't return until 8-10 p.m. We were out all day, every day, actively enjoying the island. We really liked having a kitchen, and the Supermarket Times is RIGHT around the corner, so we bought breakfast and lunch stuff to help keep the costs down. We ended up going to that supermarket for one reason or another almost every day, so we were so glad it was close.
I did a load of laundry every night in the on-site facilities, and that was so helpful for keeping the sand down.
We didn't use the pool or hot tub, there was a huge group of what seemed like college aged kids who had it completely taken over every night, but we were fine with that because we didn't book this trip to swim in a pool. :)
Our faucet didn't work for the first three days of our trip, which was definitely inconvenient, but the owner was responsive and tried to get a plumber out there as quickly as he could. There was a huge storm early in the week, so the plumber was busy taking care of damage from the storm.
The mattresses are old and uncomfortable, the bedding is really old and tattered, and things weren't super clean at checkin - something sticky on the counter, and hairs in the sheets. However, it gets SO sandy (even though we tried to be neat), and I don't envy the job of having to turn those places over for new guests, as I'm sure it's a more intensive cleaning process than other places have to deal with.
If I was going for a romantic trip, I would have wanted more comfortable accommodations, but this place was good for what we needed. I'd definitely stay in Kihei again over other places on Maui - I bookmarked multiple places around ours!