The Battle of the Installers

Okay, someone straighten me out on this issue.* Every installer I've had to build, I built within Visual Studio. Through some politics I've blogged about but don't need to go into here, I got stuck on an InstallShield project.* I hate it. Further, now I'm coming under attack for defending Microsoft's product against IS.

I know the VS installer does everything I need, but I feel I may need some more fuel if this issue escalates.* What's your favorite installer factory/package/system, and why?