PowerShell: detecting errors in script functions

What is the best way to detect if an error occurs in a script function? I'm looking for a consistent way to indicate error/success status similar to $? (which only works on cmdlets, not script functions).

Given a particular function might return a value to be used by the caller, we can't indicate success by returning a boolean. A function could use a [ref] parameter and set the value appropriately inside the function and check after the call, but this is more overhead than I'd like. Is there something built-in to PowerShell that we can use?

The best I can come up with is:

1. In the function use Write-Error to put ErrorRecord objects in the error stream;
2. call the function with an ErrorVariable parameter;
3. check if the ErrorVariable parameter is not null after the call.

For example:

function MyFun {
  [CmdletBinding()]    # must be an advanced function or this 
  param ()             # will not work as ErrorVariable will not exist
  process {
    # code here....
    if ($SomeErrorCondition) {
      Write-Error -Message "Error occurred; details..."
      return
    }
    # more code here....
  }
}

# call the function
$Err = $null
MyFun -ErrorVariable Err
# this check would be similar to checking if $? -eq $false
if ($Err -ne $null) {
  "An error was detected"
  # handle error, log/email contents of $Err, etc.
}

Is there something better? Is there a way of using $? in our script functions? I'd rather not throw exceptions or ErrorRecord objects and have tons of try/catch blocks all over the place. I'd also rather not use $Error as would require checking the count before making the function call as there could be other errors in there before the call - and I don't want to Clear() and lose them.