Please tell me exactly what is different from RH AS that I can't get from anyone else other than the cluster manager. And If I choose not to use that, what locks me in?Cluster Management? You mean to tell me that CLuster management is the only things RHAS gives you?
Wow, the Enterprise Kernel (big-mem 5GB+) and a higher resolution scheduler... more in line for what I would term OLTP biased vs. Workstation biased. Also by default the the sysctl set "busy IO defaults" to more inline with a "server style" non-foreground aimed machine or a "transactional-services" machine. It also has alot of semaphores and much more ability to address and use SWAP more effectively using the vm they have stuck with since pre-2.4.10. The forwardported that VM into 2.4.18... kinda why so many companies are having difficulty with responsiveness and memoery sharing on RedHat machines.
You may have capable admins, but it go without saying that unless you know exactly what a specific product gives you, you can't know how to tweak it. I have always said there are some VERY good things about most of the RedHat Kernels, then again I wouldn't want some of the "hacks" they have in there if I were to put it into production.
Fer instance, early in the 2.4 realm (RH7.1) the 2.4.2 kernel had a BIG problem with syncing data on filesystems... most any file-system but main upon dismount of Reiser Filesystems and it did also have difficulty with EXT2 FS also. A hack they made... seemed to affect only certain system configs.