I was trying to understand deployment scenarios for Sling/JCR when I started wondering if I could simply use the Sling Launchpad and simply start the server using the jar. My project needs simplicity more than performance, but is there something seriously wrong with this approach? Alternatively, is there a good place where Sling/JCR deployment is discussed in detail?
I don't think we have a detailed description on how to deploy Sling applications, the best might be to ask on the users mailing list ( http://sling.apache.org/site/project-information.html#ProjectInformation-lists ) so that others can share their experiences.
As for starting with the launchpad I don't see a problem with that, that's pretty much how we are using Sling in Adobe CQ5. We have our own customized launcher that adds a few features, mostly related to upgrades management, but the basics are the same.