Not really sure what you mean by brickhouse. If you're talking a hardware router (like a linksys) vs software routing (like using linux) I'd say both have their plusses and minuses. I use a linksys myself because it's easy to configure, and it uses very little space and power. If you decide to build a box for this purpose, you need to find somewhere to put it, as well as a way to configure it (maybe an extra monitor), and you're going to use more power running it all the time. If you need the best security and config options, a separate machine would probably be better. If you want something simple and easy that offers NAT firewall capability, then go with a hardware router. The performance differences between the two options shouldn't be extremely noticeable in your case.