You know, I once thought that in order to create the best image possible, I needed to shoot RAW to do it. But over time, I have found that RAW format has its uses, but the most efficient format to use is JPEG-fine (which most cameras have above standard JPEG). The advantage to using RAW is where heavy manipulation is needed, to store as stock or as DNG or digital negative for archiving. The RAW file or format is simply everything the image sensor has captured the moment the shutter opens and closes. All cameras start with this image, then implement baseline corrections to the image like sharpening and corrections to hue and color along with applying a levels curve, then it compresses it to a smaller file. If you shoot RAW, the first thing you'll notice is that it will almost always look flatter and softer than even the smallest JPEG. This is so because you chose to save the file before the camera applies the neccessary baseline corrections all digital images need due to the nature of digital photography. So you'll have to apply these corrections yourself. The problem comes in when people don't know what corrections are needed, often turning them off of using RAW out of ignorance to how to work with them. They do take a measure of work, and because they do and their nature, a plug-in is needed for photoshop or some other stand alone editor that will drive RAW images on your computer. When looking at that, there is no real advantage over JPEG-fine as the file is what you will eventually save it as after all the post work you'll do to a RAW and you still have the ability to create high print resolutions as you would with RAW. So the first answer was grossly misstated.
The only advantage I see from using RAW is lossless editing capability. When you edit a non-compressed image, you add and take away from it, and after you'll end up compressing it anyway as you can't save as RAW from most RAW editors (only from RAW to JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PSD, or DNG typically) which with the exception of DNG are all compressed. The advantage comes from compressing your edits/manipulations after, instead of editing an already compressed image. You will simply have more data to add to or take away. If you do a lot of B&W conversion, dynamic range merging, panoramic stitching, or other high bit rate digital manipulation it is always good to start with the most data you can have to work with. That is where RAW comes in. But if you just need to work with an efficient format with the best quality for prints only, JPEG-fine is all you need. The workflow is less complicated and your post work time will be shorter, if you're in the business of making images for people. The only two situations I would ever use RAW is when I convert to B&W (again, utilizing the most data, even for greyscale) and for HDR merges. That's me. Others may disagree, but that's real world application. Business application is altogether a different animal, but would still depend on your workflow and your service niche.
Bottom line, RAW just ends up being more work. There's nothing wrong and folks swear by it, but I like simple. And in my case, JPEG-fine simple works best for me.