Actually, I just returned from Japan and got a 1 gb sim card from econnectjapan.com for data use without needing to be a citizen or having a long-term residency card. Did it on line and it was quick and easy.

We use Slony. It is a delicate beast, but works quite well if you take time to read the limited documentation. You can use a kludge to keep schema changes in line: if you execute all schema changes through EXECUTE SCRIPT statements on the master server, all the slave nodes will get the schema changes. As for large object support, you're right; it is a problem.

PITR recovery and log replication may work in 8.2; but I agree with the posters who complain that there is no easy replication for postgresql.