Nice article and I agree with you on the performance factors, but also would like to add that there are occasions like when you need real time data(read reports) from db located remotely, options are limited.

Like recently, I got an assignment of retrieving data from db residing in many sql express clients located remotely, infact nearly 100's of clients and need to pull data into a centrally located sql server for real time monitoring using data retrieved.

Any thoughts?