Years ago it didn't take me that long to get PulseAudio setup to play from my HTPC through my laptop (so that I could use the headphone jack on the laptop). That said, it wasn't plug-and-play. I didn't use it too often because there were too many moving parts every time I wanted to get it setup (i.e. setup the laptop to receive audio, then get the HTPC to connect to the laptop and send audio... then disable it all to get things back to normal afterwards).

What would have been preferable would be for the HTPC to advertise itself as a audio source, and the laptop to be able to list sources, and let the use select one.