I have both. OP - not sure where you live, but given the area I'm in, I don't find the IGH to be any less maintenance free than those with a derailer. From my personal experience, the IGH has been a bit more temperamental than the others, as it developed a "skip" when shifting down from 5th to 4th. It took a while to troubleshoot and I finally just replaced the cable and housing and seems to have gone away. The drawback is if something happens, there's not a lot of user-servicable parts and if it needs to be worked on the whole wheel needs to be sent in.