So, I've been setting up a peat-fired power plant -- BUT using redpower's item transport instead of buildcraft's. I've discovered that redpower is:
-Much more reliable -- when buildcraft item transport attempts to fit an item into a full inventory (eg, cobble into a recycler with a 64 cobble stack inside), the item gets spit into the world, and is a pain to automatically retrieve. Redpower item transport instead throws the item back into the transposer, and prevents it from spitting out more peat. Awesome.
-Much more difficult -- buildcraft looks at a peat engine and thinks, "any input goes into the burninator slot, any output takes from the ash slot." Easy peasy. But Redpower item transport looks at a peat engine and thinks "bottom inventory is ash inventory, side inventory is for burninator slot." Redpower has been a real pain.
-Much buggier -- redstone tubes connect to peat engines, but won't give them redstone power. Jacketed wires won't connect to the engine, but will power it.
Edit: I also realized that clever use of retrievers and filters allows me to rapidly switch between burning low-power peat, and scarce bitumious peat, for times when I need a lot of power
Any other comments?