I have fond memories of the one in the home I grew up in, which my mom still uses.
When we recently added on to our home, we got one put in the addition. It won't get the air out of the attic, so that is a downside, but it is a "QuietCool" whole-house fan; we picked it because it (the model we chose) can be installed directly into a vaulted ceiling -- which this addition has, so we needed that. They do have other options. So far we've been happy with it, but no really relevant weather to test its functionality yet. The way it's set up, we can use it to draw air into the addition from (just) outside, or into the addition from the house, or into the addition and the house from outside, which I think will provide some useful options as DH and I have somewhat different ideas about how much A/C is/isn't needed. We also got a "Honeywell 7-Day Programmable Timer," switch (search Amazon), which I haven't programmed yet, but which will make it possible to have the thing kick on for 2 hours starting at 3 in the morning, if we want. So hopefully that will prove useful.