I would venture the guess the best tool is the database since that's where most of the data is. SED, AWK, etc., apart from not being on Windows in general or inside SQL Server, is not accessable from within a query. Which is where you would want to match up data.

This isn't UNIX either, so those excellent products work in a great many, albeit minority, of the computers in the world.

The right tool is the one that fits the job and for a SQL Server DBA, these tools can work well. For a Unix admin, it's not an issue since you won't work with SQL Server anyway.