I grew several Italian Golds (a paste type) in 5 and 7 gallon containers last year. They did fine in both, but I think they liked the 7 gallon containers better. These are a shorter plant, which was why I picked them for containers. I grew two in the ground as well, neither in ideal spots since sticking them in was kind of an afterthought, and the tomatoes on them were about the same size as the ones in the containers. They might have had bigger tomatoes in a better location.
The ones in the ground produced all season and were some of the last I harvested before frost. We had an issue and lost nearly all our containers in the middle of summer, but I assume they'd have kept producing otherwise.
I had one plant that got blossom end rot badly, but the others didn't or only got it on one or two tomatoes. Since they were all treated the same, I'm thinking it was a genetic variation that caused a susceptibility (and I didn't save seed from that one).
Also, cage them even though they're in a container. I tried staking them with 5 foot bamboo stakes and that was not sufficient. The plants didn't get very tall (3.5 feet or so) but they need a cage.
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