Looking for bedtime solutions

I once read on another blog that after you make it through your child's first year, you never give your child's sleep another thought. Either that parent was extraordinarily lucky or we're abnormal, because sleep is just about all we do talk about here (well, and the futility of potty training).

I've come to terms with the idea that Jack is not a big sleeper. He sleeps fine, just not very much. Most nights he's slumbering by 8 or 8:30, and he wakes up for the day between 6-6:30. That doesn't leave us much time to ourselves, but we take what we can get. The real problem is getting him to sleep, a task which Hans undertakes most nights. About 1/2 the time Jack does fall asleep on his own (eventually and after some power struggles), either when Hans is reading to him or by himself once Hans leaves his room. But the rest of the time is not fun: Jack gets out of bed, runs to his door, opens it, and runs out to find us. And, oh how he laughs.

I pretty much avoid specific-topic parenting books, but I'm wondering if we need a little sleep guidance here. We've tried a bit of a technique I saw once on Nanny 911 (back when I thought the experts had the answers), wherein the parent continually places the runaway child back in bed, as many times as it takes until the child gives up and goes to sleep. It hasn't worked and I surmised it was because we didn't keep it up until he surrendered, but last night I tried it until Jack became totally hysterical, so it doesn't seem like a good option for us.

I guess that leaves us, on those nights when Jack won't settle down on his own, in a familiar position of reading with him until he falls asleep, which we did just about every night from the time he started teething until Jack got his big boy bed last year. Maybe we're lucky it took Jack this long to discover he doesn't have to stay in bed at bedtime. But we sure would like things to be a lot more mellow. How does everyone else get their toddlers to sleep?