For me: I want something that will always work with minimal effort and is easy to use for the family.
I've farted around with every HTPC software from MythTV on and I'm over it. I'll happily pay the premium for an AppleTV that will handle almost everything in hardware.
This is the answer. AppleTV is worth its weight in gold. Well supported and quality apps, good connectivity options, enough horsepower for hardware decoding, and Apple has a good reputation for privacy (hello no ACR).