Managed Security Monitoring Services vs In House Monitoring

[Jeff with The Big Yellow Suit]

I'm working in an environment in which security is ..um..deficient,
and I'm going to be tasked with putting together a plan to
tighten things down, and I'm considering between outsourcing
the job of intrusion detection versus doing it in house.

The primary limitation in doing this is likeley to be brain
cycles.  Quite simply the staff is stretched far too thinly,
they are not historically very good at the daily care
and feeding of complex beasties.  I envision any sort of
inhouse system going in with a bang and then languishing
for lack of updates and passion.  I've seen it happen too
many times.

For those reasons I'm leaning heavily towards outsourcing.
The obvious candidate is Counterpane, but I'd like to get
people's feelings about this, and I'd also like to scare up
a list of services doing similar things.  Any help and or
horror stories would be appreciated.

-jeff