Limitations of Gridview?

Hello,

I'm using Visual Web Developer 2008 Express. I need to develop Web pages where rows in a DB render as columns in the HTML display.  I also need to paginate according to some fairly customized rules that can't be accomodated simply by "allowPagination = true".   Given these necessary contortions, how and where do I intervene?  Do I not use a Gridview at all and write everything by hand in VB in my default.aspx?

Thanks.
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