Some 6 years ago, i had a bad experience with a custom dump. It wouldn't restore and my data was lost. I was a beginner then, and working under windows, and i wasn't on the mailing list yet. It was no critical data, we could build the database again, which was then easier than figuring out what exactly went wrong with the backup.
Since then i have refused to trust custom dumps. But they do provide some very nice functionality, like restoring a single table.
So my question is: what is your advice on custom dumps? Can i bet my life on them?
Cheers,
WBL
-- "Quality comes from focus and clarity of purpose" -- Mark Shuttleworth