I have never seen Ryanair actually stop anybody from bringing a carryon which is too heavy/large, and I have twice taken a backpack much too large for their dimensions onboard. It is actually shocking that Ryanair misses out on this potential source of revenue, but this has been my experience; perhaps I have gotten very lucky. That said, the SAS flight is still likely to be worth it (though the fare has now risen to $72).

Not sure what these reasonably priced options are, buses from Arlanda into Stockholm seem to cost at least SEK 90 (about �10) while buses from Skavsta were only SEK 150 (about �16), so flying to Arlanda instead of Skavsta is only a small savings.

I have been asked to put my carry-on on the scales on several occasions with Ryanair, both at the check-in desk and at security (bathroom scales at LBC!). I have also seen it happen to others - one one occasion, at STN, I saw a passenger being called back to check-in, after she had started to walk away, when the agent became aware of the backpack she was carrying.

During the aforementioned FDH-STN-DUB-STN-FDH trip, my carry-on was weighed in STN both ways, and in DUB as well since it's a fairly big roll-aboard that looks much heavier than it is. Thankfully, it was 0.1kg lighter than the maximum allowed, so I got to take it aboard with me. Should have seen the looks on their faces...

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They weighed my carry on at each check-in station. Before I went on my first trip where I would be carrying on a bag, I bought a cheap small roll-aboard that met their dimension requirements, and made sure that I never had more than 10 kg in the bag.

Have you checked flying other LCC's? Easy Jet, for example, is a much better experience, and often not much more expensive, if it flies the route you want.

You would also have to factor in overnight accom costs in FRA, which could increase your costs significantly.
Something worth considering if you want to avoid Ryanair and also avoid the Frankfurt to Frankfurt-Hahn issue is to fly to DUB, then either onwards direct on SAS (from approx €110 all in) or DUB-CPH on Aer Lingus (from approx €33 all in) and CPH-ARN on either FlyNordic or Sterling (from approx €30/€50 all in respectively).
Oneway flights from ORD to DUB or SNN are usually quite reasonably priced on AA, DL, CO, EI or US (starts around $210 all in). Both AA and EI have direct flights to DUB from ORD.

EasyJet doesn't fly to Frankfurt at all, and is not a much better experience (food still overpriced, still hawk lottery tickets, still charge for checked bags, still screwed in case of cancellation; these are all issues I'm willing to deal with but I've not found Ryanair to be any worse). This far in advance you can find LCC-level prices from legacy carriers anyway.

I disagree. I find Easyjet in practice to be much better than FR. FR stick rigidly and mechanically to their T&Cs, whatever the circumstances. IME, Easyjet apply their T&Cs with common sense (eg: they have a "flat tire" rule, unlike FR). They tend to fly to "proper" airports, rather than glorified sheds hours away from the main city that the airport is meant to serve. Both charge for checked luggage, but Easyjet has no weight limit for carry-on as long as you can lift it yourself.
As to legacy carriers vs LCCs, the difference is nowhere near as big as it used to be. An increasing number of European carriers offer no complimentary catering on European flights. As to irrops, which used to be the most significant differential between LCCs and full service carriers, if you are on a cheap fare, most European legacy carriers will now do the same as the LCCs, viz. will only reroute you on their own services rather than that of another IATA airline.
As to prices, many European legacy carriers still stick to the old model of having to book a return ticket with minimum stay requirements in order to benefit from affordable fares.

To add to the advantages over easyJet over Ryanair listed in the above post:

- EZY may charge you for checked baggage, but at least they give you the industry-standard 20kg (plus reportedly a bit of leeway) rather than the 15kg Ryanair offers (with NO margin for error).

And if any airline ever decides to put pay toilets in its planes, my money says it will be Ryan Air!

Didn't FR use to offer service to "Copenhagen" via Malmo airport which is 70 km away in Sweden?

It's in Sweden, but it's not 70 km away - it's in the Copenhagen commuter belt.

Other (and probably better) examples are "Oslo" Torp (Sandefjord) and "Hamburg" L�beck... and of course the previously-mentioned middle-of-nowhere "Frankfurt" Hahn.

Though more recently FR seems to have started services to airports that it refers to by their real names - for example, there seems to have been no attempt to market services to "Hamburg Bremen" despite the fact that Bremen and L�beck are equidistant from Hamburg.

IIRC, they were asked by the OFT a few years back to drop some names when the name of the main city was not in the official name of the airport and the airport is quite distant from said main city. So out went things like Lyon (St Etienne) (they no longer fly there), and the like. That said, they have reverted back to type since then in relation to quite a few destinations, such as Barcelona (Girona), Barcelone (Reus), Grenoble Lyon, Bratislava (Vienna), etc...
And then, there are also the airports where they can quite legitimately use the name of the main city because it is in the name of the airport. Bruxelles (Charleroi) and Frankfurt (Hahn) are the most striking examples of this.

Ryanair has repeatedly been in trouble with the UK's advertising standards authority (ASA) - usually for misleading claims about its prices and/or denigrating is competitors.

Some of the recent ASA rulings can be found here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_ne...00/7048767.stm

D�sseldorf-Weetze also enters into the above category. I spotted a sign by the DUS taxi stand the other day listing the price for a taxi ride to DUS-Weetze as being �100 - � 105.