An early poster to this thread said he sold his 50/1.4 and bought the compact macro to replace it.
When I first came on the Canon SLR scene 10 years ago, I looked at the three then-available 50mm lenses, and chose the compact macro. I sill have it.
But I'm amazed at some of Canon's product development (or, at least, product release) choices. Why do they update already really decent ring USM primes (28mm comes to mind), and ignore the awful, fragile 50/1.4? Why do they have three standard L zooms (24-70/2.8, 24-105, 24-70/4 IS)?
I can only conclude that if Canon were to release a proper, non-L 50/1.4 or /1.8, with ring USM, sharp optics, accurate auto-focus, metal mount, round aperture -- possibly with IS -- they're scared to death that they'd never be able to keep up with demand!