Has anyone worked with the Zend Framework? (or php frameworks generally...)

I recently went on a "php framework safari" I tried out almost every framework. Cake, CI, Symfony, you name it.

Here is what I was looking for.

- Good MVC support
- Friendly database handling
- Easy to use
- A future! (something I can stick with)

My two favorites came down to Codeigniter and Zend. Codeigniter is so easy! and so quick to set up. But, I found it limiting, and sometimes it complicated things. The directory structure is complex, as it has to accommodate every bit of optional functionality. I do like the ActiveRecord implementation, and the View handling. One more thing - Codeigniter is php 4 based. It runs on PHP5, but does not take advantage of the new and improved features.

Now, Zend. Compared to Codeigniter, its a PAIN TO LEARN. The documentation is a great reference, but using it to learn how to use the framework is almost impossible. Zend also does things a little differently, which I have decided is for the better. When you download it - instead of getting a full site structure, all you get is one folder, "library". This folder contains all the classes of the Zend framework. So, if all you want to use is the useful "Yahoo web service class" you can. You dont need to set up a full MCV directory structure. However, if you do need to set up a full MCV application, you must set up the directory structure yourself. You can do this any way you want. Zend defaults to conventions, and changes on request.

Well, now I've gone on way to long about this - what do you think? I'm interested, what framework do you use - and why?