Yep, ridiculously expensive, grinder is good enough. In the enterprisey space where my day job is, load runner has a certain reputation (despite whether it deserves it or not). We found with the open source or cheaper tools (IBM rational tools included) under really high loads logging, measurements and the tools themselves got flaky. When you've got extremely limited time and hard deadlines in a hardware lab, time is the most precious commodity, so the cost can be worth it.