I've taken two SANS course as instructor led boot camps. I can say that if at all possible, I won't do that again vs. taking OnDemand or @Home. The firehose of information was a bit overwhelming. These courses have a *lot* of information in them. Depending on your learning style, being able to absorb that slowly over several weeks, IMO, is preferable to having it dumped on you over 5 or 6 days.

I don't know about the hands on for GCIH@Home, but I looked into GPEN@Home. The one and only offering so far is currently ongoing (sadly, I could not take it for $$ reasons), and I did get confirmation that a "Hack Lab" of sorts would be available to the students for the duration of the course, which is spread over something like 6 or 10 weeks. That to me makes the @Home version of GPEN much more appealing that the classroom version.

Just to note, in case you aren't aware:
OnDemand - Canned, pre-recorded material completely at your own pace
@Home - Virtual interactive classroom with scheduled meetings, with previous sessions available if you miss them.

I haven't taken the Security+, but I've been looking at doing so. One thing to note is that they have a new exam as of this year. Out of the 41 exam objective areas listed, 13 have new/updated content, according to CompTIA. You might want to review the latest exam objectives if you are planning to take this. Most of the free resources that I've seen on the Security+ are based on the 2002 exam.

http://certification.comptia.org/security/