advice for unmatched student. To gradaute or not

Hey,
I did not match in ortho this year. I plan to do a year of research and re-apply for next year. I needed to get some advice. My dean said I could go on leave of absense (LOA) for one year and graduate in June 2008 so that I can do research. I wanted to know if there were pros and cons of delaying graduation. I hear one good thing about delaying graduation is that you're still seen as a student when you apply on ERAS again. That's key because I've been told if you're not a student then in some ortho programs your application will get red flagged and therefore won't even get reviewed. I was wondering if people can tell me what they know about delaying graduation for one year. What are the benefits and risks? Any advice would be appreciated.