Unlike ffusco, I have never been a Randite, but think her ideas are worth thinking about and reading. I think there is a profound cri d' cour in her work against any sort of enforced collectivism and for liberty. To me, that explains the appeal of Rand's work to so many over the past half-century or so. Whether she has been successful in translating that impulse and insight into a coherent philosophy (or philosophical system, which is another thing altogether) is a different question; one which most serious thinkers answer in the negative.