While back at school, with the 4MB/sec connection:
Ran web app from desktop -> ssh reverse proxied through to cheep $20/month ~unlimited bandwidth server. sshfs on desktop so static files that were uploaded go through the desktop and back up to the shared server so they'd get served quickly to users.
Then I got a faster laptop so I decided to run everything but the database off of that. So it was user->shared host->laptop->desktop with database->laptop and all the way back for every request.
Latency wasn't really that bad as long as the shared host was nearby.
Ran web app from desktop -> ssh reverse proxied through to cheep $20/month ~unlimited bandwidth server. sshfs on desktop so static files that were uploaded go through the desktop and back up to the shared server so they'd get served quickly to users.
Then I got a faster laptop so I decided to run everything but the database off of that. So it was user->shared host->laptop->desktop with database->laptop and all the way back for every request.
Latency wasn't really that bad as long as the shared host was nearby.