Is CustomLASIK a real procedure or just some worthless extra that this place is trying to sell?
What is the most advanced lser? How is the VISX STAR 3 ActiveTrak Excimer Laser System?
CustomLASIK is their brand name for Wavefront LASIK, which is a procedure where they bounce waves of light through your eye to exactly map any irregularities in the shape of you cornea and other parts of your eye. Given the mapping, the surgeon can more precisely fix astigmatism and other imperfections during the surgery.
I had it done for my surgery last week (my place called it CustomView or something) for $400 extra an eye because I believed it would give me better results. I’m seeing really well now (20/20 right, 20/30 or so left), but I can’t guarantee that that’s because of the Wavefront procedure. Your call as to whether you want to spend the extra money or not, but I wouldn’t consider it a “worthless extra.”
http://www.aao.org/aao/news/release/20031003SF.cfm
I don’t have any info on laser models (I don’t even know what model was used on me). More important to me would be a surgeon I trust, with lots of experience in the procedure, and who will do all of the care (pre-op check, operation(s), post-op check) herself. If I trust her skill and experience, she can use any old laser system she wants. 
It’s a real thing, not a gimmick. As has been said, it allows a more precise mapping of your eye than traditional eye exams. That map is transferred to the computer running the laser, and the laser can fix all those minute irregularities that showed up on the scan. However, my doctor said that unless your eyes have some pretty significant aberrations on the surfaces, it’s not worth the money. In my case, they gave me the scan the first time I went in, and my doctor said he wouldn’t recommend it for me. Get a doctor you trust.
I just got some info from my brother’s surgeon, and he does the wavefront custom-view thingy as well as LASIX. His surgery is $2400 per eye, plus an extra $400 per eye for the wavefront.
Wow. But I’ll probably go for it. What’s another $800 when you’re spending $2800 already?
Yeah, that’s the same price I got, EJsGirl (did you go to Kraff?). I have massive astigmatism in one eye, so I went for it. In retrospect, I probably could have just had them do it on that one eye.
But like you said, what’s $800 at that point?