Forms Services availability checking for BIGIP Load Balancer

We are load balancing across a number of 10.1.2.2 Forms servers using a BIGIP load balancer. Currently our load balancing is done based on which server has the "least connections" to the BIGIP. So far we have been using the following test URL to allow BIGIP to check the availability of the Forms Services on each server.
http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status
This works well however it only checks through to the HTTP level within Forms Services. We encountered a problem when the Forms Services failed to work on a particular server however the above URL showed that everything was OK. The effect of this was that all new users attempting to login were directed to the failed server as this server had the "least number of connections".
After raising an SR with Oracle they advised that the forking of runtime processes had probably failed and this was not detectable by the load balancer with the above URL. So they have recommended a number of options for checking the status of the Forms Services. These are:
a) http://server:port/forms/frmservlet
This loads the default Form and therefore by definition tests the forking of runtime processes. However BIGIP is unable to automatically process the information to distinguish whether the service is up or down. Oracle recommended that if using this method we would need to customise BIGIP to handle the various FRM-xxxx error codes.
b) http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?userid=scott/tiger@YOURDB&form=yourtestform.
fmx
Even more thorough would be to actual log on to the database using a test form as above.
My question is does anyone out there have experience in checking Forms Services availability using these last two methods as I'm not sure how to customize the load balancer so that it can handle the output of these URLs. Also when using the original URL is it normal to load balance using a "least connections" method or do people out there use a different algorithm.
Thanks for any help/advise that you can give.
Regards,
Philippe

Well SR followed up and it looks like the only course of action is to use the standard HTTP check: http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status ...
... unless that is you want to do some serious customisation. Oracle don't support any other form of checking.
I'm guessing from the lack of responses to this thread that this hasn't been an issue for anybody else ... ???
Any thoughts/suggestions really welcome as we go into production in 4 weeks.
a) What do people recommend for load balancing Forms ... least connection, round robin ... ?
b) Do people use http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status or have some of you used something else?
Thanks,
Philippe

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