My house has Hardy Plank (fiberboard) as well. It's wonderful stuff. When my house inspector saw it, he told me I'd be thrilled. It holds paint better than wood, it can't rot, and it's even fireproof (which saved me some money on my house insurance). Best of all, they can texture the boards with fake wood grain so you'd think they're actually wood.

Of course, brick, stucco, concrete, or even steel/tin siding are all good materials to use, depending on where you are. Bricks have better insulation properties, but you don't want to use brick anywhere that you might have an earthquake. Also, in places where the ground is effectively jello (like Houston), where your foundation will settle, brick or stucco would eventually get unsightly cracks.

There are a few modern houses a few blocks over that have this radical mix of materials on the exterior: concrete cinderblocks, steel bits, and wood bits. It looks remarkably well-done, although there are other trendy steel exterior yuppie townhomes going up here and there that are unrepentantly ugly. (A friend who grew up in the country calls them "barns".)