What is your carb/electrolyte strategy?

There are so many options out there for nutrition, hydration, and electrolyte balance during exercise -- sports drinks, sports gels, sports bars, electrolye-infused water, electrolyte/salt tablets, etc.  Since I'm in the process of learning what works best for me, I'm very interested in hearing what the rest of you do, and what rules-of-thumb you have adopted in your training.

For example, I was speaking to a friend of mine about this topic, and he said matter-of-factly, "Oh, if you are using sports gels, then you should only drink water and nothing else."  His strategy is to avoid gels and drink one bottle of sports drink for every bottle of water he consumes.

I also understand that exercise duration is a big factor.  I've read that for workouts under one hour, water is really all that should be needed.  (For me, this won't work since I have type 2 diabetes, and will become hypoglycemic if I fail to ingest carbs within 40 minutes.)

So please let me know what your strategies are for fluids, carbs, and electrolytes while you're training.

Thanks!