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My favourite romance shows tend towards the dramatic end of the spectrum. I think there's something about watching a relationship between two characters go through so much that makes that relationship really meaningful for me.
Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu: Six episode quick watch. Starts cute before getting very intense around the halfway mark. However, the characters remain very, very human throughout. It does have a couple ecchi scenes, but they're brief.
EF: A Tale of Memories: One half of this story is a fairly stereotypical love triangle, while the other is more interesting, involving a guy dating a girl whose short term memory was damaged in an accident, preventing her from remembering things longer than 13 hours unless she's reminded about it. What really sets this one above the pack, however, is it's experimental animation style, which takes some getting used to but gives you a much closer look at the character's feelings than you usually get in a animated format.
The sequel (EF: A Tale of Melodies) uses a different set of characters but a similar style. However, I should warn that the second season is a lot darker and can be almost harrowing to watch at times.
True Tears: Not a lot to say about this one other than it's a stunningly beautiful show.
All three are technically aimed at guys, but the girlfriend of one of my anime buddies tends to like romance stuff and liked both EF and True Tears, so I think I have some basis for saying there's some cross-gender appeal.
On a light note, I'll second Toradora and Nodame Cantabile, which I've seen mentioned earlier.
And of course, if you're open to suggestions of series that have a romantic element rather than a romantic focus, you've got a ton of options - more than I care to try and list for the moment.
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