Before revision:  115, 1716 (2001) . In situations where leaping is seen to perform well, we emphasize the significant advantages to using these methods over more traditional simulation approaches. We show how leaping allows for statistical investigations beyond the reach of "exact-stochastic" methods and demonstrate how one can uncover, via such investigations, subtle stochastic effects that would be ignored in deterministic treatments.
After revision:  115, 1716 (2001) The networks that we consider are simple enough so as to be accessible to our intuition but sufficiently complex so as to test the limits of the leaping approach. We demonstrate how the PLA allows us to quantify subtle effects of stochasticity that would be ignored in deterministic treatments.