Re: JMS, RMI and synchronous request-response

I worked on a java CORBA project once where I was asked to replace
CORBA with JMS. I queried this because the software was using
synchronous request-response which CORBA is very good at. Well the
change went ahead anyway and I don't think the JMS approach was
better. In fact, IMHO in some ways it was worse. Now I find myself on
a java project that is also considering using JMS for synchronous
request-response. My concern is the same issues will be there. The
issues were:

cannot tell when connection between client and server is broken
cannot tell when server is not there
cannot tell the difference between a very busy server and a server
that isnt there
performance issues when large XML messages are exchanged

Yet when I google I find that people do use JMS for request-response.
They point out that JMS can be used for synchronous messaaging. Well,
yes, I do know that. I used it on this CORBA project. But just because
you can do something doesn't mean you should. And then there is lingo
project in codeHaus that offers request-response using JMS. This also
encourages people to look to JMS for solve their request-response
needs.

So I was wondering, what is other peoples experience of implementing
request-response systems in java. Do you use RMI? CORBA? JMS? Lingo?
Or something else?

RMI seems to have only superficial appeal - it looks to me like it
won't handle large numbers of connections well, nor handle fault
tolerance and load balancing. Std CORBA doesnt either but most
implementations provide extensions in these areas.

CORBA seems to have gone out of fashion. I think this is a pity coz I
reckon its the closest thing to a solution right now.