Hey Tom,
I'm currently a LogMeIn user. I did extensive research on the best remote desktop system to use and decided on this one. The main reason is security. With LogMeIn, I get 256bit encryption and little to no configuration issues. I can also access my AHP computer from just about anywhere - including my cell phone. I also went for the free version since I don't require the "extra" stuff they offer.
With Real VNC, there NO SECURITY at all (unless you get the professional version, which only gives you 128 bit encryption), which means that if anyone knows how to listen to a port (known as "man-in-the-middle" attack), they can easily hack into your machine and do whatever they want with it since ANY remote desktop system will provide total control of your system.
I also looked into Windows Remote Desktop. It provides 128bit encryption, but does require a lot of configuration to get it to work securely. For one, it has a designated port number (hard-coded, but you can change it through a registry modification), which is well known and most hackers will attack that port. The best way to configure Windows RDP is through tunneling, which requires extra hardware (router in some cases) or extra software (Windows server to validate a user logging in.)
Yes, LogMeIn does require that you go through someone else (the logmein site itself) to validate your membership and establish a secure connection between the client (the machine you're connecting from) to the server (your machine at home.) Once you're validated, you establish a P2P (peer to peer) connection with your machine so the performance is MUCH BETTER than the other solutions.
Personally, I can watch real-time video from my cell phone that's playing live (surveillance system) on my AHP machine by using LogMeIn. I couldn't do that reliably with RealVNC or Windows RDP. My connection would get saturated and dropped.
The reason why I ended up using a remote desktop instead of "My House" is because X10's service is very unreliable and definitely not designed for the bandwith I needed.
So, yes, once you go with the remote desktop option, you will not even need to bother connecting your system through X10's service. I connected once, tested it, and never logged in again.
I hope this helps!