This is a BIG topic for me, and I don't really want to discuss it in detail here, but Budge's books have their uses. You just have to be able to spot the flaws with them. They are useless for a beginner, and unless you have something to compare them to then they are a completely waste of money. The problem is that they're everywhere, have no copyright, and they are very cheap. Budge ignored many of the breakthroughs made by the German Schools of Egyptology in the early part of the last century and as a result most of his texts are hugely dated. His information books are worth steering well clear of, but his laborious copies of many inscriptions in tombs that are now beyond repair are invaluable nowerdays. His copies of the Papyrus of Ani for example, remain the best available commonly. I still prefer his translation of that particular text to that of Faulkner's (I am ready with a whole list of reasons for this- the main being that Faulkner's so-called translation is not actually one at all, but rather just a composite of what he wants to be there). Budge plagiarised heavily, and this means that many of his texts are actually written by others who had the same faults as him. Whilst the majority of his reference books are detestable, his incription copies and translations are, for the majority, very accurate (despite the largely baseless claims that they are completely wrong) and provide useful companions to other books. They just don't stand alone.
Honestly, Budge has his uses. Trust me.
For example, just yesterday I used the appendix of his dictionary to get the cartouche of Si-Amun, and then I translated it. There weren't any problems there.
