I've gone nuts over the cheap Chinese pedals in recent years. Yes, it's true that they don't always sound "right" (although many DO), but the "not-rightness" can actually be an asset in a purely electronic setting. Plus, I can jack 'em in via the studio's patchbays.
Ones that really ring my bell:
Aural Dream - Breath Delay. Analog delay, up to about 600 ms...but it has this little switch labelled "NO/GH". NO is "normal operation", where this behaves like any basic analog delay. But GH brings in the "ghost trails", where the delay returns tend to not decay, so you can build up masses of delayed sounds' echo trails. VERY useful.
Joyo - Classic Flanger (the white one with the jump jet). To my ears, this hits the spot on the OLD MXR flanger...the one with the AC cord from the late 1970s. It can go from normal to rubberband-twang sweeps with one or two tweaks. VERY easy to get excellent results here.
Nux - Tape Core. Nux's take on the Boss RE-2. I actually think the Tape Core is easier to use than the RE-2, while still delivering that old-skool Space Echo sound and feel.
Mosky - Spring Reverb. On first glance, it looks like just some knockoff of Malekko's pedal of the same name. But looks deceive, as this thing hides a secret under the "Dwell" control. Turn this up "too far", and the reverb starts behaving like FEEDBACK, ringing on the main harmonic inputted. Since you can't exactly do this with synthesizers, these cheapo things are a godsend if you want to do keyboards with rock...why let the guitarists have all the fun, right?
Biyang - Ripple Space. Really good reverb coupled with their also-excellent Time Machine delay. The Time Machine gives you either 600 or 1100 ms of delay, and coupling this with their reverb in the same box: brilliance.
But those are just the high points. Fact is, there's a LOT of pedals coming out of China that are either utterly excellent (Mooer's "Liquid Phase", f'rinstance) or downright strange. That last bit might bug guitarists...but around here, we eat "downright strange" as a main course!
And two Electro-Harmonix pedals...the first being the Flanger Hoax, which is actually a redux of the incredible Mu-Tron Biphase, and that pedal's creator collaborated with E-H to whip this out some years back.
But the other is fairly new...and totally KILLER: the TriParallel Mixer. Makes NO sound...but instead, provides a set of three FX loops that, instead of normal pedalboard routers, work in parallel against the dry signal, and you have a broad array of controls per "loop" to affect levels and phasing. THIS PEDAL IS A REVELATION...I kid you not!!! ANYONE who works with stompboxes should own one...the versatility is off the scale!!!