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I think that if you take a moment to remove any personal feelings on the situation, you will see that for the perpetrators this was a near-complete tactical success.
First off - 75% of the intended targets were hit. This is a very good level of success for most military operations, especially one of this magnitude.
Second, the terrorists had no intention of toppling the two towers - that was an unexpected bit of "luck" from their end, as most thought the World Trade Center towers would withstand a hit from a plane (although they weren't designed with the particular types of planes used in mind) even up to the moment they began to fall.
If nothing else, the amount of publicity garnered could be considered a success from their end - the al-Queda terrorist coalition became a household name, practically overnight, and practically worldwide. I can go into the benefits of this in detail later if necessary, but it should be obvious that this could lead to increased monetary aid from sympathetic regimes, increased loyalty from a manpower standpoint, etc.
The monetary damages etc, as pointed out by others, tend to point toward at least a short-term impact on world (and specifically US) economic health - another benefit to the terrorists, who feel disruption to be a positive no matter what (overgeneralization, but see KappaKittyCat's post for explaination in detail).
Now - the true success of any military operation is determined, of course, over the long haul. Here may be where the terrorists encounter difficulties, as drawing the increased attention that they have may ultimately lead to a considerable amount of bad things for the al-Queda network; however, I don't think that the 'negatives' for the terrorists have outweighed the 'positives' mentioned earlier. Toppling the Taliban seemed a great moral and tactical victory for the US, but it seems that this isn't the mortal blow the public was lead to believe it would be for the network of terrorists - and actually, KKC, your thought process makes sense (although it would essentially be suicide for the gov't to admit to it).
Until it can be pointed out that the particular events of the terrorist actions on the Pentagon and World Trade Center led to more detriment for than good for the causes promoted, they have to be considered a success.
That's one of the worst parts of the whole thing - actually, the worst has to be using "911" over 400 times each commercial break, and every single level of life having to do something to commemorate the bombings on last Sept. 11. Seems ridiculous and patronizing to me, but hey, all in the name of some "patriotism" that we'll forget about until the next time this happens.
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