I love them. I once had a bout of 'flu and whilst bedridden in the Sick Bay I found a book on arachnids and their lifestyle. The book had a profound effect, and I find them the most fascinating creatures. If you are ever bored, have a quick google around crab spiders, the sort of ones that mimic orchids to trap insects
Spend half an hour reading about the love life of male house spiders.... you'll want to learn drumming just to survive your next romantic encounter.
As for Riflemansmith's tarantulas, I think some of the most beautiful things you can handle. We had a Mexican Red Knee, docile and placid to the point of affectionate, as a school lab pet.
I knew a guy in Germany who had a Chinese Bird Eater, which could be a bad tempered bastard!
One of the most beautiful, and a firm favourite of mine, is the Orb Web spider. Known in German as the "Kreuzspinner" because of the cross on it's back, this beauty is responsible for the classic wheel shaped webs you see in the garden. A superb architect, she'll build and with infinite patience repair her perfect insect trap. She sits in the middle of the web with extended legs feeling for insect contact, and then jiggle the web to entangle the prey, before running out, parcelling it up and injecting a paralysing venom into the package which it would eat/drink at leisure.