Being involved with Protospace, our local hackerspace, I've been exposed to laser cutters and 3D printers for the past year or so. Laser cutters require some special considerations that make them somewhat unsuited for a home based office. Poison gas resulting from cutting some things tends to demotivate the staff. So, while this technology is amazing (and fun!) to play/work with, it wasn't really an option for us. 3D printing on the other hand has few such downsides.