Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) was introduced to environmental microbiology only a decade ago but it soon became a molecular tool of choice, due to its high throughput and phylogenetic resolution. Fierce discussions accompanied the new method leading to sophistication of the data preparation, acquisition, manipulation and standardization of analysis. Consequently, numerous approaches were proposed at various steps and also criticized. As a result, a combination of variable percentage threshold and Bray-Curtis index used in non-metric multidimensional scaling are now being accepted. Their combination offers a balance between noise elimination and information retention yielding a powerful and yet easily interpreted method to examine community patterns based on T-RFLP data. Its current state of the art and future developments highlight the potential of the method in the field of microbial ecology. However, a more standardized approach and a higher level of control at all stages of T-RFLP fingerprinting are needed.