I recently switched from Maptools to Roll 20 myself. For being in Beta, and just coming out of Beta this past Monday, it shows a lot of promise, and the free version gives 100 Megabytes of storage, and the $5/month plan gives you 1 Gig.
How does it compare to real life gaming? Its very different. Your not sitting together in the same room, your at home sitting at your computer. Your communicating via chat windows and mic's. You may or may not see each other via video. Players who have problems focusing on the game while sitting at your table will be even worse, because now no one can see them browsing the internet looking at porn, etc...
The good things are:
Any annoying habits they have usually go away with them on the other "side" of the internet.
The host doesn't get their house messed up by other people who then leave without cleaning up.
No one eats your food.
No one drinks your soda.
You don't have 4 or more people all spending money on gas driving over to someone else's house.
Online you actually learn to wait your turn to speak.
It quickly becomes obvious your not paying attention because you have to ask what is going on. So either you keep looking like the rude idiot you have been, or you actually start paying attention to what is going on.
Your maps and miniatures and notes are all on line, and on Roll 20, automatically open up and are available upon signing in. So no putting away or setting up once you have it all loaded up and ready the first time. Its there until you delete it.
When you find cool maps on line you don't have to print them out. You just load them, size them, match up the grids, and go from there.
Same goes with any pictures or artwork you want to use. Like with my Aces and Eights game I have found numerous pictures of the campaign area I use, that are from the 1880's, including people. So when they ran into John Slaughter, they were looking at the real John Slaughter. When they rode into Tombstone, they saw a picture of the real Allan Street of 1880 Tombstone, when they crossed a river I showed them a picture of the area they crossed at from 1877, etc... Things I would not be going through the extra effort of showing them in a normal table top situation.
So over all, I have come to actually prefer on line gaming to face to face. Sure, at first I missed the more intimate atmosphere of all being in the same room, looking at each others ugly mugs, and sometimes still do. However on line is much more convenient. Heck, my kids groups now meet and have their games on line much more often than they get together and play.
So if you give it time, you will get comfortable with it, and maybe one day find yourself not wanting to go through all the trouble of face to face. For example, travel time is the time it takes you to sign into Roll 20/Maptools/whatever. So you don't have to spend extra time on the road, driving with idiots around you. Your at home, which can be very important if you have a wife and kids. If your like me, your sitting in your favorite seat, which is far more comfortable than where you sit over at your friends house. At least for me. Once everyone learns their manners, and to only talk "in turn", you keep the mic open, so still hear the spontaneous laughs and curses. You can still BS about whatever, with the added benefit of sharing links to articles, pictures, etc... and you can do it without being rude, because you can do it via the chat windows in SKYPE, etc ... while the DM is still telling everyone what is going on via the mic.
So yeah, it takes some getting used to, and it is never the same as face to face, but in a number of ways it can be even better. So give it a try, and find out what you think and feel about it.
As for finding games, I am usually successful by going to the Forum dedicated to the game in question, and looking for groups who are looking for a player, or post that I am willing to run a game, and wait.
Roll 20 has a built in aid to use. Maptools has a forum dedicated to finding players, and so on.
