I agree, Akalabeth. But I tend to approach all games the same way: It's a nice place to go for a couple of hours, but I wouldn't want to live there. In my book, real life is always better than a video game.
All in all, I don't think I'm going to take the private server option. There's just too many security threats, especially with the server admins potentially having access to the Warden, WoW's anti-cheating/game protection software. What research I've done indicates it has a few too many similarities to a rootkit, in that someone who knows what they're doing can use it as a backdoor into your system. I disliked it what it was in the hands of Blizzard, but it really scares me in the hands of a 3rd party entity.
Thanks for the advice and feedback.