Great article.  I have been telecommuting as a DBA for almost 3 years now.  It is so wonderful.  Like this morning - I woke up early at 5:15 and started working.  It allows me more time with my kids becuase I don't have the commute time of 1 hour each way.  I also have to do many tasks in the evenings and telecommuting allows me to do that and not resent have to work additional hours.  Our telecommuters probably put in 10 hours a week more than our employees that don't telecommute.  I get so much more done at my home office.  We do go into the office for 2 days a week (minimum of 10 hours) which keeps us somewhat from being invisible.  To me - it is the best of both worlds.

PS - you asked about the areas - I live in Tulsa, OK which is for the most part very conservative.  We too were suprised when we got to telecommute. It was initialy due to a limited amount of office space and they were needing offices.  We did it on a trial basis and paved the way for other departments.  Now we have multiple departments telecommuting.