The vibration was never particulary good to be honest, I'm glad they've 'done away with it', it was something I always turned off. Having said that the Playstation joypads have always been my favourite controllers, I find thme more comfy than any other.
I don't think the PS3 controller technology is anything like the Wii's personnally. Here's a quote I found elsewhere explaining the difference:
The Nintendo Wii uses motion tracking technology. Basically, the Wii comes with two sensors that you place on either side of your console. The Wii controller has a beacon in it that allows these sensors to track the movement of the controller in real-time, 4D space. So if you swing the controller like a bat, the baseball player on screen swings.
Conversely, the Playstation 3 uses rotation control. So that means the PS3 won't come with any sensors--it'll just have the controller. However, the controller contains a gyroscopic sensor which measures rotation and movement (and as they pointed out in the presentation, it tracks the X/Y/Z axes, as well as pitch, yaw, and lateral movement). That data is then sent wirelessly to the PS3 console which then effects the gameplay.
I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it sounds about right.