no i don't use it anymore but if you're not gonna use em i'd love to have em for repair work. if mine gives me trouble i'm gonna swap it all out for pex but so far so good. and i watch it like a hawk. the stuff i've seen fail has often been bent beyond tolerances. i think guys thought it was way more flexible than it is.
I believe the rule of thumb is 8x the diameter of the tubing = minimum radius of bend. So, 1/2" PEX can be bent into a 4" radius, 3/4" can take a 6" radius, 1" can take an 8" radius.
Regarding the tooling. There are a couple different ways to get into PEX and the method you go with depends largely on how many fittings you intend to be doing. For your next repair which will need a couple fittings, you can just go with push-fittings. They interface with your current copper or PVC, and install almost instantly with no tools and are rated to work for decades with no leaks and can be installed inside walls. Drawback: the cost PER FITTING is high @ $3-$6.
After that, the next most cost-effective method is the copper crush-rings. The fittings are brass barbs, and the PEX slips onto the barb. A copper crush-ring is slid over the pex first, and then placed encircling the end of the pex where the barb is. A tool is used to crush the ring down to spec. The cost per fitting is lower than push fittings, but the tooling expense makes it non-cost-effective until you are doing a couple-dozen fittings or more. Tool costs vary from $30 for an awkward two-piece hinged tool which you must clamp down with your own set of large vice-grips, to $100 for a dedicated tool resembling a set of bolt cutters. Home Depot carries one for $94 that includes dies for 3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4" and the tool itself with no die installed does 1".
The cheapest method in the long run, which comes out ahead if you are going to be doing hundreds of fittings, is the tubing stretching tool. It uses brass barbs which are oversized so the tubing needs to be stretched open to fit. You insert the tool in the tubing and it stretches the tubing open. You then have a few seconds to place the tubing onto the oversized bard while it shrinks down tight. A plastic ring is then slid over the tubing. Fitting costs are slightly lower than the crush ring method. Tooling costs range from $200-$300 for a manual stretcher, to close to $1000 for a pneumatic-powered stretcher.
Some time ago I put together a spreadsheet that graphed the cost crossover points with number of fittings on the X axis and total cost on the Y. I used actual fitting and tooling prices sourced from internet supply houses. My memory of this graph (which I can't find or else I would post it) is where I am quoting the "dozens" and "hundreds" of fittings in the post above. Things may have changed since then (6-12 months ago).
