Never had any desire to fly RPT, so my opinion is a little biased. RFDS was the most rewarding flying I have done to date, although the lifestyle as mentioned above can be a little unusual/irregular.
If you can sleep well and soundly anywhere anytime, that helps enormously in coping with the varied lifestyle (particulalry if you're on night shift from home and you don't know whether you're going to get a callout).
Fantastic flying, and very rewarding. The look on people's faces when you pull up at the end of a kero lit strip in the middle of nowhere at 0330 makes it all worth while.
As for a career path, well nowdays you can very easily do both.
CS