Back when I was researching for our remodel, I did notice that the world seemed rather fixated on IKEA. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I think their products are pretty cool in general and their cabinets are perfectly fine. I just found it rather odd because, relative to the other suppliers' I considered, IKEA's options were more limited for sizing/spacing/styling/function. They were also more expensive than products that seemed directly comparable.
The plus side to a small kitchen is that you don't need to buy as much of everything to fill it up. If you opt for higher quality/price/performance products it doesn't hit you as hard as a bigger kitchen.
Our kitchen is small and oddly shaped. When it came time to remodel we could either use stock cabinets and have a lot of unused, awkward and wasted space (like the original builder gave us) or have custom cabinets made to utilize as much space as possible. With the small overall size we were able to justify custom cabinets and nicer countertops but keep to something resembling a rational budget.
I'm very happy we were able to spring for the pull-outs, soft closers, ball-bearing slides and
Rev-A-Shelf do-dads that were affordable simply because there were fewer of them. Buy once, cry once. When there's less of them, cry less.
A lot of budget cabinets come with generic, no-name, unknown hardware. For long term durability, reliability and maintainability I try to stick to hardware from well-known companies with established reputations like Blum, Accuride, Grass, Sugatsune, etc. They're functional, hold up well and you'll always be able to get replacements/parts.
Putting them together is the easy part. Installing them is different story.
Walls and floors are rarely (well,
never) straight, flat, level, plumb and perpendicular. The trick is knowing what to trim, shim, fill and cover to make it all work. Of course, that's true for anybody's cabinets, not just IKEA's. But a lot of people get themselves into trouble seeing only how easy it is to order and assemble DIY products without looking at the bigger picture.