We've found this to be the great spot in between.
<a href="https://github.com/rdy/fixture_builder" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/rdy/fixture_builder</a><p>You use factories to build your fixtures and it regenerates if needed.<p>I used it in a sample app recently here:
<a href="https://github.com/taskrabbit/rails_engines_example/blob/master/spec/support/fixture_builder.rb" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/taskrabbit/rails_engines_example/blob/mas...</a>