I've got a similar Brinkman, which I love. I've had it for 3 years, and it has rusted a bit, and some smoke escapes the hot box because of loose screws, but it still cooks amazingly well. There's nothing better than throwing pork on the smoker at 11pm or early am and letting it smoke for 12 hours. The process is fun. I rarely use the Brinkman for cooking directly with Charcoal. I use our gas grill for burgers, steaks, etc. When I'm going to smoke, the Brinkman is great though. I'd recommend a charcoal/wood smoker to anyone.
Clean-up isn't horrible btw. I remove charcoal ash from the hot-box every other use. Since I rarely cook directly with charcoal under the grates, there isn't much clean-up needed in the upper chamber. Honestly, I just use a hand shovel to scoop out the ash, into a garbage bag and it takes 5 minutes. You aren't going to be able to keep a Brinkman smoker pretty for too long, but the battle scars on them just give them character.