I did some research and didn’t find any­thing too neg­a­tive towards get­ting this Phot­tix BP-40D vs a Canon BG-E2/BG-E2N as a grip for my 30D other than the make. The pro-point is that its only $75 shipped from Hong Kong to San Fran­cisco. It has the same fea­tures as its Canon coun­ter­part but for less. Here are some points from the eBay seller, ete­fore (aka. HK Sup­plies), of whom I got it from:

• The Ver­ti­cal Grip/Battery Holder adds a ver­ti­cal shut­ter release, and is com­pat­i­ble with up to two BP-511, BP-511A Lithium-ion bat­tery packs, or six AA bat­ter­ies with included bat­tery holder. It pro­vides addi­tional shut­ter release, main dial, AE lock/FE lock and AF point selec­tion con­trols for eas­ier ver­ti­cal shooting.
• The bat­tery holder works with one or two BP-511/BP-511A batteries.
• Bat­tery Holder for six AA batteries
• Instruc­tion in Chinese/English/Netherlands/French/Germany/Italian/Spanish
• It also has a tri­pod socket.
• The bat­tery grip and the bat­ter­ies are NOT Canon made.
• These high qual­ity prod­uct with big dis­count from the orig­i­nal one.
• Made of top qual­ity mate­ri­als and the best qual­ity you can find in the market.

To add to that, based on Phot­tix’ web­site, the grip can be used on the fol­low­ing dSLR bodies:

• Canon 300D, 350D/XT, 400D/XTi, 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D, and 5D
• Nikon D200, D70s, D80, D40, and D40x

Here’s some pho­tos of it (by Flick­rite presspix):

Mean­while, I’m hop­ing to receive it by either later this week, or early next week. I’ve bought from ete­fore before and they ship pretty fast. I’ll update when I have received it and have given it a test run.