Question : SharePoint 2007 / InfoPath 2007 - Approval Workflow Advice Needed

Hi,

I need some advice.
I have a request to automate a form.
3 different manager need to approve the form before the submitter has approval to do something.

I have SharePoint and InfoPath experience but this was my first request for a workflow from my management.

This does not have to be done InfoPath and could be just a list, but which do you think is better?

My current plan was to create the form in infopath and promote all fields to a sharepoint list.
I could just go to the three managers machines and set an alert so they are notified, to review and approve it by editting the some metadata in columns I would create on the list item. But I see a security concern there.
I would need to set permissions so that the submitter has permission to add to the library but only the managers can update it. what do you think? Is that possible? Better way?

I also need it to be as user friendly and as rich as possible.
My plan was to create a view to share with the managers with 5 columns in SharePoint.
Column 1: Name - Linked to the document.
Column 2: Manager1 Status(Choice: Pending, Approved, Rejected)
Column 3: Manager2 Status(Choice: Pending, Approved, Rejected)
Column 4: Manager3 Status(Choice: Pending, Approved, Rejected)
Column 5: Date Created/Submitted

I can't vision how I could prevent someone who has the ability to upload from going in there and approving their own item.  It souls like I should use an approval workflow.
Are the approval workflows better in SP Designer than Out of the Box?
Do I need to learn visual studio to do this?
Again, I need the emails that the workflows create to be as user friendly an as rich as possible.
The managers also need to know if the other two managers approved it by going to a list that displays the request in a clean format which I is why i was thinking about created that view with the 5 columns.

Is approval workflow the way to go here? I also heard about the collect signitures workflow but i don't know what it does yet.

Any advice?
Thanks.

PS If you have any good sources where this is documented/or better demonstrated (approval workflows) please share.
I looked on youtube and lynda.com but i have found "the one".

Answer : SharePoint 2007 / InfoPath 2007 - Approval Workflow Advice Needed

I would put the approval in the form itself, but use a sharepoint designer workflow to actually route the document.  In InfoPath you can use "User Roles" (Form > User Roles).  Then on an "Approval" button in your form you can add conditional formatting that says "If current role is not equal to manager1 hide this control).  Make this button update an approval field (create a new field called mgr1approval).  As an action on the manager 1 approval button have it update that field to "Approved".  It's also a good idea to make another field that shows the username of who clicked the approved button just in case.  You would add that action to the button as well..... update field approval1username, for the value add a function of username().