I shoot RAW exclusively. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages by far. RAW allows you to not worry about white balance since you can adjust later in Photoshop along with the ability to adjust exposure, contrast, and saturation settings with no compression loss. You can do more to the RAW pictures in Photoshop before you start seeing deterioration like you would in JPEG. Use the Sharpen feature as an example. Do it 3x to a JPEG and then 3x to a RAW file. Tell me what the two looks like after the fact. I put money that you'd very little pixelation in the RAW but the JPEG would look like it has holes in it.
Here is one situation that most people have problems with: CAR SHOWS. At an auto show, all of the displays have different color temperature lighting. If you shoot JPEG you'll have to manually adjust white balance on the camera in EVERY booth or risk having weird looking color pics. With RAW all you have to do is use the white balance eye dropper tool when you get home and click on a white/grey area. Voila, white balance done. One less thing to worry about.
One trick Eric taught me when shooting RAW is to always set the camera to underexpose by -1. His point is that you can always brighten and not lose any detail but if the picture is overexposed then you're pretty much screwed. There isn't a way to recover detail loss in blownout highlights.
The one disadvantage is that it takes time to learn the values to use in the RAW converter and it does take more time to use. You know what though? Screw it. If you had a chance at a once in a lifetime, pic shoot it in RAW. Another disadvantage is that it takes up more space on the memory card since it is uncompressed.
RAW+L just gives you two files. The RAW is stored along with JPEG picture. It gives you a RAW file to edit in case you weren't happy with the in-camera processed JPEG.
RAW FTMFW!
