Don't discount your local colo, either. I pay $75/month for 2U, a gigabit Ethernet link to a router two hops from the metro SONET ring in Albany, NY, and 1 mbps 95th percentile bandwidth. I've got a router, a switch, and a 1U 32-core AMD Bulldozer box in there hosting VMs (it's past due for replacement but running fine).

Yes, you're supporting your own hardware at that point. No, it's not a huge headache.