I must say they were very prompt to schedule and arrived on time, cleaned up after themselves and charged a decent rate compared to some. 

It is more common to compare total sf.

Isn't that the purpose of the 70% rule, to help you see if a deal is worth doing or not?

Forget the name is such service but it would be worth it compared to forking over double the deposit.

An odd question, but what would a responsible RE investors consider to be a good % of the value (market price, not equity) of your primary residence compared to their total net worth?  

I can give you very high level calculation to understand both scenario...Lets say you buy 100K house with 1000 rent... lets compare all cash against leverage...All cash InvestmentYearly return = 12000 (Rent) + 2000 (Appreciation) - 3000 (Tax + Insurance + Capex) = 11000 = 11%LeverageYearly Return = 1000 (Rent Cash flow) + 2000 (Appreciation) + 3000 (Amortization) = 6000 = 6%Now when you leverage investment at 20%, you can buy 5 house from 100KYearly Return of 5 Houses = 6000 X 5 = 30000 = 30%There are more tax benefit in this deal also as your positive cashflow is lower...If you are planning to buy multiple houses, Leverage is always better...

But for federal 1031 purposes if there's three then there's got to be at least two different tax payers. 

Understand the fees involved and calculate the total cost for an entire year of management so you can compare the different managers.

I just want examples and context to learn from so I can then go out and compare what I see to what I've learned.

And I found it to be comparable with the cost of duct work, new furnaces and hook ups to gas lines, which we have here.