You've probably never been an expat with large families on both ends of the transoceanic trip. Sure, you can always pay up the wazoo to ship gifts to your family instead of checking them in as hold baggage, but that means that you show up at whichever end of the trip empty handed and poorer by the wazoo for the shipping.

Actually I have done the shipping thing several times and not actually found the experience too painful. Anyhow, if you are doing that much shipping, your better off sending that immediate stuff via a company as it means less hauling crap around, and someone else doing all the heavy lifting. If your on the right package, your company would almost certainly be picking up the tab anyhow.