I recently started switching my companies Linux boxes to use
the company's home directory server. Home directories are
automounted via a map file exported by the NIS server.

The thing is, /home is an automounted directory (via NFS).
It seems to be a bad thing to install to /home/httpd, since
you cannot have unique /home/httpd directories for all of
the NIS clients on the network. While NIS home directories
could just as easily be automounted somewhere else, like
/nishome, most other unixes only install "real" user
directories to /home.

The net result is, I think Red Hat should make the
/home/httpd directory elsewhere, along with any other such
directories (see my bug filed against samba).