Then again, I'd still advocate using a cheap Intel box running OpenBSD or something. I've never been impressed with the limited functions available in those black box (blue?) solutions.

Plus you never know how a dedicated box will affect you until you have one. My "server" started it's life as a Windows NT file server. From there, I added a caller ID program, Distributed.net proxy. Then I decided it was silly for my roomate and I to pay for 2 more IPs (on top of the 3 we had) when we were getting laptops, so I formatted it and played with that weird OS called Linux. It started as a simple sharing box, then added a web server, Windows file sharing via samba, then mail, DNS caching, and a pop server that pulled many accounts.

Years later, it now does: Internet sharing, DHCP, DNS caching + backup for a domain, mail gathering for many accounts including some hotmail ones, IMAP mail with an awesome front end, NFS file sharing, Windows file sharing, Battle.Net server, (from time to time) a Half Life or UT server, web proxy to speed up the connection a bit, advanced PHP web serving, roaming profiles for Windows, LDAP address book, distributed.net proxy and stats, and an empeg web cam. All from hardware I have no use for otherwise. (And I'm sure I missed a few functions there). While it has taken quite a bit of time, it has been much more rewarding, as it's the sole reason I know Linux as well as I do.