I used to avoid it myself because it looked "strange", but recently I've become fond of it's ability to streamline certain idioms, such as
if (someObjRef == null )
foo = 0;
else
foo = someObjRef.someMethod();
foo = (someObjRef == null ? 0 : someObjRef.someMethod());
There are other such idioms that escape me at the moment, but I've re-thought my aversion to the ternary operator and am putting it to good use now.
Rob