This is Paul from NYC and I just joined this tribe. I held off because I was trying to keep Melissa from losing her bet with Carmine that the h-g tribe would attract less attention than his cumbus tribe, but I acceot that its a lost cause. H-G is way cooler than cumbus. Here's my two cents:
-I play a hugarian model from Nagy Balazs similar to Melissa's, and I've tried my hand at building one. Its an awful lot of work, and you have to be patient and enjoy the act of woodwroking. If you're dying to play one, you probably dont want to wait until you've built one, and the first one you build might not be fun to play. On the other hand, if you know how to work with wood, I'd say building an h-g is very forgiving, because no one really knows what they're supposed to sound like, so you cant go wrong ;)
-Nagy Balazs instruments play great and are indestructible. His new book is great too.
-Melissa (and Carmine's) recent 9/8 tune post sounds great, everyone should check it out.
-I can't sit still and play other things and have tried building other things.
Cheers