For what its worth, I never use reverb live. Just a delay set for around 300ms with 1 to 3 repeats mixed pretty low. Whatever the sound man does reverb-wise at the board is his/her call.

Also very much with Will on this. I used a delay when gigging, but I tend to get pretty stupid with the 'verb at home on my own. When recording, I try to do everything in the software, playing a straight up guitar tone into the mix.

With some practice, you can do a pretty good job of mapping reverb. The human ear is actually sated pretty easily, so if you can get the crisp early tones & the warm late tones, you could probably copy the effects of a room adequately. For instance, record a live guitar direct-to-board, & another track from a microphone from the front of the stage or back of house or whatever. You tweak the "clean" track until it sounds like the guitar in the group mix.

There's good hardware out there that's not overly expensive. Keep an eye open for something like a used MultiVerb from ART (Applied Research & Technology):
http://www.artproaudio.com/
They've backed away from effects to focus on preamps, but they've tried everythig from guitar amps to some really spiffy realtime spectrum analyzers. I recommend them because I have an old ART M-1 monaural digital reverb that continues to blow my socks off with its presets, anything from small room to plate to big dark theater.

If you don't want to mess around with a box, consider software. This list is two years old, but gives you a pretty good idea of what's out there:
http://getthatprosound.com/the-...rb-plugins-in-the-world/
For little or nothing, you can readily find some really cool-sounding toys.
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Aside from all that, I have to agree with the guys who've weighed in. When in a live setting, reverb can be added to soften a sound, like when you've got two or more guitars fighting for the same audio space, or a strummed acoustic that's stepping all over the singer. Adding reverb keeps the sound there, simply dispersing it, as opposed to turning it down.

(I once worked with a big folk-rock band that had THREE acoustic guitars AND an electric AND a bass, & the first four were always power-chording away until I just wanted to "accidentally" dump 'em ALL into board echo cranked to 10. )

For what it's worth, and to close the loop somewhat on this topic, a bit of analog delay (about 1/2 way up the dial on my MXR Carbon Copy, which I think is around 350 ms) did the trick. I didn't miss the reverb at all. And that's a big admission for this reverb junkie.

Sometimes I enjoy using a good reverb more than a repeating delay but it must be a reverb that does not wash the tone out or get too cavernous and springy. That surf thing or the cha-rang of springs, not so much my thing. One reason I left amp reverb years ago but now in the uses of my heavy fusion work I find reverb can me more useful and musical than delays.

I find at the moment pending my new POD500 that is on the way; I really like the Lexicon chip reverbs in my Hardwire Reverb RV-7. I got that unit for like $50 on a sale price goof up and it has been a great reverb. I do not care much for mimic of a spring which never floated my boat that much anyway. But it's plate, and hall are fantastic. Gives me a deep long throw spaceous presence to my tone or a tight slight ambiance without losing my sense of gain or drive, very Jeff Beckish fusion in nature.

Delays can loose control of your tone and attack unless they are laid back or set to dynamic response, or they are of course the core of the tone itself (Edge). Less is more is always the moto. Being able to kick that reverb on for solos and such just adds that something which makes the passage stand out as really something.

For a pedal, I dig that Hardwire. We'll see how the HD500 goes but I plan an entirely different rig for it to take advantage of its modelling potential, these units are wasted and rendered to half their ability trying to run them into a guitar amp. I love my tube amp and my pedal board but I am starting to realize I may just have to build two different animals to really enjoy the magic forest.