[R] lme v. aov?

[John Christie]

I am trying to understand better an analysis mean RT in various 
conditions in a within subjects design with the overall mean RT / 
subject as one of the factors.  LME seems to be the right way to do 
this. using something like m<- lme(rt~ a *b *subjectRT, random= 
~1|subject) and then anova(m,type = "marginal").  My understanding is 
that lme is an easy interface for dummy coding variables and doing a 
multiple regression (and that could be wrong).  But, what is aov doing 
in this instance? MANOVA?  I also haven't been able to find anything 
really useful on what to properly assign to  "random" in the lme 
formula.  For repeated measures the use above is always in the 
examples.