@ Rachel Drum – Hooray! You are brave – good for you! It’s well worth it. Can’t wait to hear about your experience. =)

As far as using it for cloth diapers: The first 6 months you can just put soiled diapers into pail, then into machine, with no rinsing required so the sprayer isn’t needed until they start solid foods.
When they start solid foods, it totally depends on the kid as to whether you’ll find the sprayer useful or not. I expected to use my sprayer (and I’m totally poop-phobic) so I wasn’t looking forward to the after-6-mo part. However, my son’s poops turned into solid formed little logs. They rolled right off the diaper and plopped into the toilet. I only used the sprayer when he was sick with diarrhea or something (and at those times I was really glad to have it). However, from other moms I’ve spoken with, many of their kids go through a 4-10 month stage (starting at 6+ months of age) of squishy gross food-filled poop before getting logs that roll off.
Since they can be had relatively cheaply, I think they’re nice. I also use it when I clean the bathroom sink & the toilet – it’s handy to have a little hand-held sprayer in there!
Oh, and using sprayer & cloth for #2 is really nice if you end up with hemorrhoids… just FYI. :)

The diaper sprayer seems a great way to go if you’re going to use cloth for #2 (which I haven’t tried yet). I will be cloth diapering but haven’t picked up a diaper sprayer yet. Do you think I should get one? I wasn’t sure how necessary it was and was leaning towards skipping it, but now I’m reconsidering. I’d love any input you have!

I switched to using cloth wipes about 6 months ago. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be: LUXURIOUS
I had to get past my initial squick factor to even give it a try, but decided since I already had cloth wipes for my cloth diapered baby, I’d at least just try it for a day.
Cloth wipes are soooo comfortable. Mine are flannel, and I made them from old flannel receiving blankets. They do a much better job than TP, and leave me far cleaner feeling.
As for #2 – I have a toilet diaper sprayer. Sort of a hand-held wand bidet, if you will. We bought it for the baby’s poopy diapers (and it was amazing for post partum, that alone was worth getting it). I now use the sprayer after #2. Then I use a cloth wipe but that’s basically to dry off.
We keep TP in the bathroom for guests. Our cloth wipes are kept folded in a Huggies pop-up dispenser so I don’t think others notice it, and it’s really easy to just pull out the next one – they pop right out like kleenex.
We also use them in place of kleenex, heavenly on your nose. My son used to scream when I’d wipe his nose with kleenex, but he loves fleece wipes on his nose and will let me do that.
As for laundry: They don’t add anything more to the wash. My cloth wipes are 6″x6″ and I toss them in whenever I’m either already doing a load of diapers or sheets/towels. They don’t actually add more bulk to the load.
Love all the money I’m saving on TP, and never having to reload the TP roll, but most of all it’s just so much more comfortable, I don’t like using other people’s toilets anymore.

This has a little info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_cleansing#Water

@ Rob – Interesting, I’ve heard of worm bins for food compost, but not for bathroom waste. I’ll look into that, thanks!

@ Eric Normand – You mean like a squirt bottle? I know a lot of women who do this while healing after giving birth, and thay all swear by it. To me it sounds a bit . . . cold, haha. But maybe I’ll give it a try (maybe after this baby!)