All threads I can remember on this board referring to Browse Host functionality were also related to anonymity, security, and especially **AA. Average user have unfortunately a very freaky imagination how the Internet works and I fear a such option may cause more harm than good in the long term (support, publicity). Under these circumstances I'd chose the 2nd option or maybe a 3rd option: "Don't care, in the end I'll find out what you are sharing".

Anyway, to pick up gubatron's sample with the 5000 files. Have you ever tried to browse host a node with 5000 files and found something useful in a reasonable time? I've pushed this even further and experimented with a Database driven FileManager. IIRC browse host worked with up to 90.000 files (it took ages and the browsing host was technically dead and spit OOMEs) and on the server side I was able to share 600.000 files (the DB was larger than all files together ).

What I'm trying to say is that Browse Host is a poor design (for me a "don't care" feature) and in the long term it will anyway disappear and will be replaced with something more advanced. Just my 0.02