SQL or PL/SQL for Hand coding ETL

Hi
Wanted to get a general idea, as to what others have used when hand coding ETL for loading data into data marts.
My thoughts : Straight inserts , updates, merges are faster, however can't capture errors. Pl/SQL is more flexible allowing to log errors if any.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

There needs to be a process to tie everything together, which would seem to dictate PL/SQL rather than a bunch of SQL scripts run through some OS script. Plus you may run into a situation where set operations are not the best way to go.