I used a MicroScribe quite a bit in conjuction with Inventor. There was a standalone app you could run that would work with the Precise Input toolbar (in 2D - this was Inventor 6 we were using at the time) to put points down on a sketch and then create profiles from there.
It worked OK, but depending on the accuracy you need you've got to be extremely careful how you use it. There was a 3rd party vendor that had some software that would allow you to capture points in 3D using workpoints, but it was about $6k at the time, and didn't seem to do terribly much aside from capture points.
The envelope is pretty limited too - unless you're going to do really small parts, you've got to have some accurate fixturing method, which drives the cost up even more unless you already have some stuff sitting around.
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