Maven is really good choice to do large builds...in the majority of the cases where it doesn't work is very simple. The people misunderstand the concepts of Maven. If your are working with the "maven way" you will end up with smaller modules which gives you a better architecture in your software. On the other hand things like Hudson will support you in reducing build times by using Maven, cause Hudson supports to build only changed modules which is not supported by any other build tool. The problem with Maven is to learn and understand the concepts of Maven for example the structure of a project(folders etc.) or only a single artifact etc. The build-cycle will support you in different areas: compiling, packaging, deployment and release which is not supported by other tools (only if you implement it by hand...I've wrote many large Ant scripts to reach this)...Other problem like changes over the time are caused by ignoring the best practice and pin pointing versions which are used.
