Its a good question. Actually i have only begun to used an IDE and not really set on any particular one so i could make a choice from many options. I used JBuilder to edit Compiere Source before Eclipse. I have also browse thru JDeveloper (Oracle) and IDEALJ. Actually I often do compiling using the Utils-Dev\RUN_Build.bat instead of the ant build.xml in Eclipse which also works the same way. Both are ok.
About Netbeans, i have heaed that it came out first before Eclipse which is newly introduced last year.
The point on why I choose Eclipse above all else is:
1) It is heavily invested by IBM with USD40m prior to Open Source
2) There are many books and literature on Eclipse
3) It is built using an all plugins platform, dont know if NetBeans is like that.
4) Eclipse growth is phenomenal, with many parties building more plugins on it.
5) I cannot afford to learn too many things!

6) I decided as early as possible which platform to use and stick to it.
If your team has been using NetBeans for some time and already invested time as well as most productive using it, then i advise that you stick to it, and only consider changing when you have finished with present project and about to move to one. You have to consider that it take up to 3 months to be highly proficient with a new tool. Its like changing cars.