Where does the default gateway belong?

[Bob & Karen Timmons]

Greetings,   We're having a discussion at work on the merits of moving the default gateway from our router to our switch.  In a nutshell, we have multiple IP subnets and 2 routers with secondary addresses.  I understand that the 'Cisco way' is to readdress so as to not have multiple IP subnets, however I'm not here to debate that.  We'd like to move the gateway address to our core switch and let it do any routing (Our switch (3com) is a layer 3 switch that's capable of RIP & OSPF).  I'm told, though, that it cannot be done.  I don't have any spare layer 3 switches with which to 'play' with.  To me, it makes sense to have a switch do the routing because they're considerably more robust than the routers that we currently have.    We're replacing our 3com routers with 2 Cisco 7206's next quarter and will be installing a pair of 6500's next year.  We're moving from OSPF to EIGRP only.  What we'd like is for the switches to route, assuming that they're EIGRP capable.  I guess we'd need a route-processor.   I guess my question is, can this be done?  Is this a common practice in the real world?  I'm anxious to hear from you all.   Bob