"Its far too easy to simply skip over it as a simple assignment operation."

This can be mitigated with parenthesis around the conditional statement.

"ternary notation ... [is] great for saving (a little) time"

I like it because it allows for immutable variables (enforced by fiat, of course), without writing four lines of "if ... else .."

That being said, it can be abused: http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en&lr=&q=%22%3D%...