Most of the main points have already been covered, I think, but I'll add a couple of personal comments.
Regarding TV distribution, as far as a new home is concerned I would wire everything as homerun to a central point. I've spent countless hours trying to sort out horrendous signal problems on systems which have a real hash of wiring, amplifiers, and splitters all over the place as things have been added and extended. The losses in coax and splitters soon add up, and trying to get anything resembling consistent signal levels can be a nightmare in these systems.
On basic telephone wiring, there's no real technical need for homeruns if you anticipate only a basic single or two-line system. However, if there's any chance that the owner (or a future owner) might want something more complex at some point, such as a home PBX system, extra lines added for data or fax to which an existing outlet will be swapped, etc. then homerun wiring will make these future changes much easier to do.
