I've got an RV-5 because it was the most versatile for the price range and it's one of the few that offers a decent gated reverb in a pedal. The stereo feature lets me use that setting as a doubler. However, the electro-harmonix pedals (Holy Grail, etc.) are very good as well. The Mr. Springgy was about the best version of a spring reverb in a pedal I've ever heard. However, the one chance I got to work with it, I preferred it for vocals and acoustic stringed instruments over rock guitar. This should be taken as a compliment, though, since few pedals are good enough to be used as reverb for string quartet. The Mr. Springgy was.
For electric rock guitar, I just don't care for the Fenderish spring reverb sound. It sounds a bit dated and no matter where you set the mix level, it also usually ends up not sounding very realistic for the environment, which is ultimately the test of any reverb. The reverb sound I use the most is when I'm playing live in a small club environment. I add a bit of, you guessed it, small room reverb to the sound....just enough to acoustically match the environment I'm playing in. Done right, the reverb shouldn't really be noticeable. It should just blend in your guitar's sound with the environment so it doesn't sound so amateurishly dry and in-your-face to folks sitting closer to your amp.
Especially live, many if not most guys take a very amateurish and ham-handed approach to adding reverb to their sound because they don't realize what the real purpose of reverb is. For recording purposes, reverb is used to make it sound like you recorded in a particular type of listening environment, from a tiled bathroom or small intimate club on up to a gothic cathedral. For live purposes, it's there to do essentially one thing: match your guitar's dry signal to the acoustics of the playing environment you're playing in. That's it. That's why, in a small club, a large hall reverb on your guitar sounds so out-of-place and unprofessional no matter the mix level. The guitar stands out, but not in a good way.
In a few years, multi-lateral processors will be fast enough and cheap enough that consumer-level reverbs will start to allow adjustments for "Q" and real-time attenuation of the acoustic properties of the playing environment. IOW, "smart" reverbs that will self-adjust in real-time to the playing environment while you play. Till then, we still need to learn how to do it ourselves.
