Personally, I send out all of the quilts I don't home FMQ. I use basic and simple FMQ on things like charity quilts. The ones I want to really look nice goes to my long arm quilter. The way I see it, anyone who does long arm quilting as often as she does has to have an advantage over people like me who stick to basic stitches and haven't learned anything fancy. It's a matter of practicing a skill, really. I don't think I'd get enough practice on a rented long arm machine to justify learning to long arm quilt on them. Just my opinion, and who knows, I may change it if I get more comfortable on home machine FMQ.