hoffmandirt

I have recently started using iBatis to handle my sql within .NET. iBatis couples objects to the results from sql queries. It's kind of like an object relational mapper tool but they refere to it as a data mapper. I'm curious about other people's opinions about using software like this vs. just using .Net to handle the sql. Sometimes its real simple to use and other times it's just a pain. For instance, sometimes I would rather just have a dataset than having to deal with a list of objects all of the time, but I like to stick to using one model. Are there any great advantages over using iBatis as apposed to creating my own data layer with objects to handle the sql, other than the idea that the sql is in the xml files instead of hard coded?