I tend to favor DIY ethic with my own work. I may use some professional tools. Computer, professional printing equipment and so on. But when you look at what it really is, in majority of cases, I record, master, dub tapes, design/print/cut/fold, release, retail and wholesale all the titles. CD and vinyl manufacturing is something company does for me. Sometimes they also take care of printing covers. But most of all, I do it elsewhere, by myself, using machinery meant for it. And then assemble final release one by one. One could always hire "professional" to do the same work. Or improve it just a bit with scoring of inlays etc, but in other hand weight is heavier on having the hands-on approach on what I do instead of hand on the wallet approach.
"Homemade" in sense of negative remark is most of all just reference how things often turn if people have zero interest to any effort. Be it financial or devoted time & energy. I don't think anybody would oppose master works of talented craftmanship or packaging that is 100% suitable for audio it contains?
I think it's easy to ask oneself would you PREFER pay or buy items such as ones you release. If yes, that's probably good way to run a label. If you put out low grade CDR's, lame packaging, but never buy other than professional LP's, then probably time to consider other options. Nowadays releasing is so easy and options just about everywhere in world, it hardly requires severe compromises.
