Ask HN: IP Cameras - yea or nea

IP cameras seem to be all the rage for home monitoring (as opposed to 'boxed' recording solutions with their own protocols, etc). I'm considering putting some in after a recent break-in, but there's a possibly significant cost and time component involved.

Does HN have any firsthand experience with them in the long term, specifically with regards to: 1] Usefulness (have they helped prevent something bad?) 2] Quality (could the cops use a pic pulled off the camera?) 3] Hackability (do they expose an API of some kind so that I can set up triggers, actions, etc?) 4] Robustness (obviously dependent on setup, but how do they cope with power outages, data outages, etc?) 5] Autonomy (do I need to hook them up to a small server, or does it have a reasonably amount of capability build-in?)

The above would differ from brand to brand, so if anybody has had good success with a particular brand/model, feel free to post :)