Please share your experience with data guard in 9.2?

We are considering whether to use data guard to replace OS ha solution like VCS.I tested Data Guard 9.2 on my linux PC server and it seems they work pretty good. But I have no experience running data guard in production, so ask for your experience:
1.Do you use data guard broker or manual administration? I find manual administration and simple script is enough for data guard administration, do we really need to learn another complicated tool just in order to use data guard?
2.Does data guard work well in big systems? My test server has just several gb of data and little transactions. If I switchover to another node for hardware mainetence, is it as fast as (or more faster than) OS clustering techs like VCS?
3. Is it a stable product like standby database in 8.1.7? We use standby a lot and it seems easy and robust,with some small problems, though.
4.Anyone using logical standby database? Is it as good as shareplex from quest?
Please share your experience, thanks.

Hi

well data gaurd is better than standby ..in many ways as most of the admin tasks have been simplified..On great thing i like about datagaurd or rather the new enterprise manager is that adminstering data gaurd has been integrated into enterprise manager..

regards
Hrishy