Using NTFS as an active R/W partition in linux is asking for trouble IMHO. It may work in most times, but it's probably one of the least excercised linux configurations.

Actually it's just the opposite. In the last two years NTFS became one of the most excercised Linux file systems.

There are two main reasons. The obsolete FAT is being replaced by NTFS and Linux is rapidly replacing other embedded OSes.

NTFS-3G had over 12 million visitors, daily 1,000 daily downloads despite it being used by over 200 Linux distributions (on some it's the root file system), it uses one of the most extensive suite of file system test suites (http://ntfs-3g.org/quality.html), used by many well-known ISVs in their products and consumer electronic device makers who sell millions of units per year (routers, multimedia player/recorders, set-top boxes, data collectors, etc).