When I saw the title of this thread, it made me think of the Seinfeld episode with Teri Hatcher that just re-ran last week.
We do both: Years that we are home, we get the tallest real tree that will fit in our living room. And every other year we travel to visit my family for a week at Christmas, so we haul the one out of the basement and set it up. That way we don't come home to a dried-out tree and a pile of needles on the floor.