I would look closer at using Crystal Reports. It is a very powerfull tool for creating reports. The problem is what you already know, it is not a easy tool to employ.
Youre gonna have to do some research to get crystal to work. The good news is that Seagate has a number of examples on there website, Also I think that .NET comes with some free tech calls to Seagate when you register(this may depend on the version of .NET your have).
Here is the link to CR tech support website area for .NET examples
This link should take you to a document that list all of there coding examples for VB.NET
http://support.crystaldecisions.com/communityCS/TechnicalPapers/apps_vbnet.pdf.asp
If that link doesn't work do a search for : "Listing of .NET Appliations in Visual Basic .NET"
Good luck!