Torrents are excellent and easy to use.
uTorrent is the leading application. BitTorrent is also decent. I use uTorrent.
For websites, it all depends on what you want and the quality of the material. Many of the elite groups are closed and rarely allow new members to join. On the other hand, thepiratebay is probably the best open-source torrent site and it offers a ton of quality movies, music and applications. The top 100 seeds generally have 1000's of seeders so it is a breeze to download quality material. Plus, the site allows comments to be made on each torrent so you know exactly if the movie (or whatever) is good.
People who do not like torrents do not understand torrents, or they had a bad experience by trying to download a torrent that wasn't seeded well (which can take forever).