We've been using this for about a year, and I think we have more luck with the product. We're using it for backup/restores naturally, but also take advantage of the Cloning to other machines, verifying on other machines, etc. Also, I've created a script in PowerShell that mounts the last backup for an index maintenance scan before actually performing the index maintenance on the primary data.

It's quirky to be sure, and we've encountered many of the same issues, but it has advantages that we now rely on.