The only time that you may have a problem with RAW is if you use it as an excuse to expose improperly and think it will be ok because it was shot in the RAW format and that you can just fix it later. Underexposure is noise's best friend - if you underexpose and try to pump up the exposure during raw processing it will bring on the noise. But that is also true of JPEG so just as long as your exposures are spot on you shouldn't have any problems. This is true regardless of which camera you use.

My experience is based on working my Olympus E1 which is a pretty noisy camera. As much as I love my camera I am aware of that fact so do have quite a bit of  practical knowledge of how to handle noise and thus consider underexposure to be the devil - just as bad or even worse than overexpsure in some cases.  Avoid underexposure, I can't stress that enough.

I also should mention that Canon's raw jpeg engine does have a tendency to "smooth out" the noise during its jpeg processing so you should experiment with your own camera to determine which format you like better. You mentioned trying to shoot in jpeg and raw similtaneously and that would probably be a good thing to try - much easier to compare and decide. I think that once you start shooting RAW you will probably prefer it - I know I do. I think the images also look sharper when captured RAW  which makes it worth the extra processing time involved for me most of the time. I avoid it when shooting events though - if shooting 400 or more pics it can be a bit of a hassle (weddings would be the exception there but I don't do weddings yet).

I hope my post added some useful points for you to consider. I do love your gallery - you have some pretty amazing images there!