As a newbie who used this forum to gather info for two trips to Honshu last winter, I figured I'd give back and post one Gaijan's perspective of Hakuba and Nozawa Onsen.

Hakuba
The Good Stuff:
Terrain and snow. I've skied all over North America and a fair bit of Europe for 30+ seasons. Hakuba is legit. All info in the forums and Wiki is pretty much spot on. Unfortunately I was there just after a big rain event if Feb, so conditions were not great. But I saw the potential. From my limited experience, go in January for best chance at consistent new snow and cold temps. Vertical is impressive from valley to the tops of the peaks, but only about half of that is lift served. If they ever built something to the top...wow.

Guides. HAG were great. Took their AST Level 1. They take care of everything- transpo, snacks, lunch and great instruction. Lots of folks staying at Hakuba Powder Lodge went on day trips with them while I was there. They all came back having found good snow and great times, which was hard to come by that particular week.

Lodging. The Powder Lodge is as advertised. Clean, comfortable, functional, affordable, lots of friendly folks pretty much all there to ride. Quiet by about 10 for a good night sleep, but you can find a group to go push it up with if that's your style.

The not so good:
Getting to Hakuba. I had to fly into Haneda, which made things a little more challenging, especially schleping a bunch of ski gear. Taking one of the buses straight from Narita would definately be the easiest for a first timer to Japan, but not the cheapest. Trains from Narita are doable, especially the high speeds through Tokyo Station and then a quick bus from Nagano to Hakuba. A bit more of a pain from Haneda as you need to take a monorail and subway just to get to Tokyo Station in order to transfer to a high speed train. Renting a car (see Nozawa Onsen below) in my opinion is the most expensive option. Recommend that only if you have a group to share costs with and are planning on going to multiple valleys.

Overall: If you hit it while it's snowing (or at least cold and no rain) the skiiing/riding will be world class. From my experience, most comparable to the Pacific Northwest.

Nozawa Onsen
The good stuff:
Almost worth the trip for the Onsens alone. The town is great.

The OK stuff:
Terrain and snow- good potential but not great. Info in Wiki seemed about right. A tall mountain without a lot of cut runs- so tons of tree skiing if the snow is good. I went with my wife and kids in March. It rained at night and was sunny during the day. Fine for my young kids, but not much fun beyond that due to conditions. Talking to a few of the locals, seems January is awesome with very few people to share the powder with.
Lodging- stayed at one of the lodges from Nozawa Holidays. Run by an Ausie expat who was a good host. Guests were mostly Ausies, most of whom weren't great skiers, but all of whom were having a great time. Perfect for the ski bum set. A bit too much on the backpacker side for my wife.
Transpo- I rented a car for this one since 4 x train/bus tickets added up. I got a good deal on a car, gas and tolls so it worked out. Roads are good and easy to navigate if you're used to driving in foreign countries. Tolls maybe better this year since GOJ is doing an experiment with removing some of the tolls on the expressways. I'm not familiar with exactly which expressways are toll free on Honshu right now, but shouldn't be too hard to figure out with some searching.

Overall- I wouldn't plan a trip to Nozawa Onsen alone. Good option if you base out of somewhere else (like Hakuba), the weather/snow is good and you want to see something else for a day or two.

To all the Ninjas- thanks for posting a ton of great info on this site. It was a huge help.
Plan on hitting Hokkaido this year.
Cheers...