Father of 3 here, first two were home births, the third had complications and ended up being a hospital birth. I was initially skeptical for the same reasons but the first meeting with the midwife convinced me that they were taking every precaution and had the training to deal with whatever might come up.

The majority of births are simple if you let them be and the midwives go to great lengths to make sure the conditions are right for a successful event. In the case of our third we hit some conditions leading up to the delivery date that disqualified us for a home birth so we seamlessly transitioned into the hospital system (where the midwife still delivered the baby)

Home birth is absolutely a rational choice in many cases. The author had a very strong reason to require hospital birth but in scenarios with lower risk it is safer in some respects to avoid the hospital.

It will still cost you 5 - 10k for a good midwife and you'll still want to be insured in case you need to transfer. So it only knocks off 5-10k from the total.

Yes, it's routinely done. The NHS has this to say: https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/labour-and-birth/where-to-give-...