I might get the barebone one and run it from usb so it can be a small silent box in the front room. xbmc would be nice on it but also been looking for a small decent cpu box I can configure with vpn client to connect to a server and then use it as a gateway for rest of the network to go through. My little NAS box doesn't have the power to go much above 3Mb/s on it's small cpu as openvpn is pretty heavy. The hummingbird being an A9 Cortex is still pretty basic compared to what else is out there at that size and price.
For xbmc there are those android box's which are quad core mali's. Now xbmc supports hardware acceleration properly in them, they could work out much cheaper, can use xbmc but also everything else from the android market.
Getting lots of choices around similar price ranges lately. Spoilt for choice for gadgets
