sucrets4:I love my Graco Lauren. It's cheap and can turn into a toddler bed without an additional kit, plus the back can be used as a full headboard later on.
I'm very glad we didn't buy one that was more expensive with the intent of keeping it in her room forever.
DD2 will be using the same crib and we bought a cheap toddler bed for DD1 until we get her a full bedroom set. I'm happy with our choice.
This is pretty much us exactly. We also bought the Graco Lauren for all the same reasons.
I will say for us, when we converted the crib to a "toddler bed," we knew it wouldn't work for Ds. We ended up buying him a twin bed and that has worked much better. The toddler bed is really just the crib with the front rail taken off and it becomes more of a day bed. My Ds is really tall for his age and would have outgrown it really fast and then we would have to transition again to a larger bed so we just moved him to the twin immediately. Also, he knew a "big boy bed" looked like mommy and daddy's, so the day bed look threw him off and he thought it was something to play on.
Long story short: I like the convertible cribs only because I like that we will probably use the back as a full size headboard when Ds is much older. But that is our only benefit.