RE: Rate Gyros for Automatic Control
Finding attitude with rate gyros IS difficult and complex but it is the method used by many commercial autopilot and stabilization systems on the market, such as MicroPilot, Piccolo, GNU UAV Project, etc.
It is quite surprising just how well low cost rate gyros will perform if you throw enough computing grunt at them. Piccolo I think is using fibre optic gyros, which are somewhat better than piezo and mems gyros but bigger and more expensive.
Check out [link=http://autopilot.sourceforge.net/]GNU UAV AutoPilot Project[/link] if you want to get "up to speed" on this technology.
Cheers,
JohnF