This has been a fun read for me - I'm in the progress of making this move myself!
With us, I was the one that was hesitant to make such a "messy" room the first thing people see. But my DH convinced me that nobody that we would invite into our house would ever care. And he's right!
We need to get some painting done and some cables re-wired - the room has been my DH's movie-watching room (he's taking over the never-used family room) but now it is going to be my super awesome sewing room. I can't wait!!
Benefits in my case (besides more space in general) will be that I can have all both my quilting and embroidery machines set up and on the same floor, laundry on the same floor, and everything in one room rather than bits in 3 different shared rooms. Plus I'll have a much larger design wall, woohoo!