I went to Nintendo World earlier today and they had the first wave of amiibo in a glass casing. Having seen them up in person, I feel like I should retract some of my statements. They actually look good for a first attempt. Link, Marth, and other humanized characters have the potential to have derped faces, but the others look pretty damn solid. Worth noting though that all amiibo have that yellow base similar to Link (at least the first wave), not the silver like we were first shown.
Fox and Samus looked the best to me, looking almost like tiny collector's figures. Fox looks to have had a fair bit of effort put into getting the details of his outfit right, and Samus' armor has a nice finish that makes it look more like just a simple McDs toy like they could've gotten away with. My only complaint would be that Fox has a blue thingy holding up his left foot (similar to Link's pee-colored stick, or the clear plastic of some others), which clashes with the yellow base.
They looked presentable. Not sure if they're the actual production figures or just really nice prototypes made specifically for show, but I'm reasonably impressed. Still not quite sure if it's worth $13, however, given the current uses they have. Some photos are
here. Please excuse any bad shots.