All waterways here are now matted.  It is work and it does cost some money when the ww's get real long, but, man, does it do a good job of stabilizing things.  We haven't seen a failure with one yet, and we've been using the matting for about 5 years now.  There is a peg staple available now that makes installation a lot of easier:  http://www.enviroscapeecm.com/CircleTopStapleSpec.pdf