Was rummageing through the $200 or so sets of gaskets I bought for the 2.0's engine swap when I came across an oil pan gasket. Uh-oh, I had just followed the factory service manual's instructions to glue the oilpan on I can return the oilpan gasket if the box is unopened. Should I pry the oilpan back off and use the gasket instead of the sealant? Or leave it like the manual says and the way it comes from the factory? Any preferences?

Gray silicone all the way, I did a gasket once.......once,
leaked like crazy, so bad I had to fix it...again, hate wasting
time like that. Leave it glued on

Wild

I agree with Wildgoody. Two reasons, the oilpan has to be designed to take a gasket or it will just get squeezed out and leak. Secondly if you have the crankshaft position sensor mounted on the pan then the sensor will be be spaced too far from the pulley and the engine won't run or will run badly.

Gaskets leak. Sealer is the way to go~!

Ya, I tried the gasket way, if the factory glues it on, there must be a good reason

Weird, I have had nothing but good luck with running oil pan gaskets and find that using a ton of sealer usually just results in a single small leak somewhere on the pan so you have to pull it back off and do everything all over again...

If there were a rubber gasket, I would use it but the cork ones
just didn't last for long, and eventually split and squeezed out causing leaks

I hate cork oil pan gaskets and will never use one again.  The one time I tried to use a cork gasket, I didn't even get it torqued down before it split and got spit out the side of the oil pan.  I pulled the oil pan back off, removed the gasket, used RTV/silicone/whatever you want to call it, sealed it up, put the oil pan back on and it worked/sealed great.
Oh, and I don't use a ton of sealer, just a nice thin layer so it doesn't squeeze out when the oil pan bolts are tightened.