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Ok, so what exactly makes a magician good ?

I can do many card tricks, a few coin slieghts and some other good effects but, I still don't class myself as a good magician.

Why is this ? is it because I haven't the experience of performing on stage or strolling around tables actually entertaining people and therefore don't really have a routine ? or is it just a lack of confidence on my behalf ?
Don't get me wrong I have performed but I mostly do magic because I love it and I like to know how things are done. Normaly I do it for friends and family and I love the reaction I get, "what the.... but.... how did you...?" and so on.
So what makes a magician good or worth watching ?

I love the reaction I get, "what the.... but.... how did you...?"

you just answered your own question... its not about how much you get paid (although it would be nice) its all about causing people to suspend belief... maybe only for 30 seconds, maybe for a month but thats all it is... in my opinion anyways

It's difficult to form a universal answer for this one, as everyone has their own favourites - stage magic, close-up, shock-gore, lemon vanishing...

But the base seems to be the same: a magician who is accomplished, skilled and creative seems to float my boat.

Magic is a performance art - and it's heart is in creativity. It's like saying 'What makes a good fine-art painter???'. After 2 years studying art/art history at A level, and the best part of 20 years studying design, art and culture, I still can't make up my mind... I adore Gaugin, Dali and Picasso - because of their diverse and expressive styles. But I know people who think their work 'does not look real', and therefore it's not art.

This is frustrating - as creativity and it's acceptance cannot be pigeonholed. The artist is expressing and communicating in their own way, and everyone's interpretation will be different.

You can take certain magicians with obvious genius, and compare them with the guy you saw in the Hotel Entertainment Lounge when you were abroad at the age of 5 (no, I'm not referring to childhood gender changing!)... remember him??? He performed a couple of run-of-the-mill effects that he's been doing night after night for his most of his working life, interleaving them with a song, and finally inviting the kids up to guess what the balloon animal's name is...

OK, so he was entertaining. But he wasn't creative. He didn't shine, and you've probably seen the effects he did a million times since.
He's an entertainer - not a magician.

I think, by nature, a magician has a spark of 'real' magic in their soul somewhere - and their way of expressing that becomes their performance. Your own love of magic may well be a sign of this - and like the famous painters - it's only a matter of time before you need to release the magic and communicate it to others.

Creativity, flair, skill and passion - they're all wasted if you can't share them.

And just to throw a spanner in the works, one of the best tricks I ever saw was the late Doug Henning doing Torn & Restored Cigarette paper, in Tee shirt and flares, seated on an almost transparent perspex set. Doug's fingers commanded all the attention and the 'transparency' of everything else gave it all a very 'clean' effect.

OK, the routine he did was ages old and has probably been done better by others (unlikely, but I like to be fair!) but, for me at least, those 3 or 4 minutes were pure Magic. Simple, effective, entertaining and full of the 'Wow' factor.

If you can do some routines well enough to please, amuse, and entertain folks then you're doing fine. Whether that makes you a 'real' Magician is a matter of how you feel about it. Personally, I'd be very tempted to call myself a Magician at that point but it would be just the start of an ongoing and possibly never ending study of the craft.

It's a hell of a good question though - at what point in their careers did Houdini, Blackstone, Zenon, Penn & Teller (OK and Blaine!) and all the others we know and refer to actually become good Magicians?