Something like Rake is obviously better when you need to really program your builds.
Make allows you to consistently specify actions in a universal way. Typing 'make edit' will open the main file in vim for me in any project. Typing 'make update' will check for available updates on any platform using the appropriate package manager, and 'make upgrade' will download and install them. Typing 'make sync' will transfer my project files to the specified $SERVER as the specified $USER with the appropriate protocol. Typing 'make install' will copy an updated configuration file and restart all of the daemons necessary for it to work. It's a great timesaver. Even when I need to write shell scripts for something too elaborate for make, I tend to create a target that runs the script, instead of trying to remember its name and all of the options.