It's all about what's important to you.
Do you really love where you live? Do you need to stay close to family/friends? Are the taxes or cost of living so low where you live you just can't justfy moving? Do you not want to pull your kids out of their school?
Maybe you should commute.
Do you not want to give up half or sometimes entire days off commuting? Are you based at a city where loads are so full commuting is practically impossible anyway? Do you not mind moving if your company decides to displace you or close down your base?
Maybe you should live at base.
Commuting is not a good or bad thing, it's just a matter of deciding where to live, and what is important to you. I did a real bastard of a commute for 6 months from IND to LGA/JFK. It was, by definition, an awful commute. I had a choice of either a two-leg commute through ORD or DFW on my own airline (AA) or I could ride Comair/ACA (I have a spouse travel card on Delta) but there was only 3 non-stops a day between IND & LGA, and riding Comair/ACA there was no F/A jumpseat available to me.
I made the choice to do this commute because I refuse to live in New York City. I had been displaced to NY, so I didn't want to be there anyway. Also I had just gotten married, and while both of our airlines had bases in NY, we knew we were going to be moving to Chicago anyway, and there was no way we were going to uproot and move our stuff all the way to NY for six months, and then turn around and move it all the way back to Chicago!
