Wow! I had no idea so many Mustachians were in the Raleigh area. My husband and I live in Durham almost spitting distance from the Raleigh border, and always wondered if this was a good spot for Mustachianism. (It seems like everyone lives in Colorado or the NW!) It's funny to hear you mention Leesville schools -- I went there, my husband went to school in Chapel Hill. He's an NCSU grad, I'm a UNC grad. They weren't too bad, at least the high school part where I went.
RootofGood has a lot of the same input I do, and here are some additional things to consider, since I've lived here forever.
The good:
1 - Great, mild weather
2 - Very inexpensive COL:
-- the Raleigh farmer's market is huge, open year-round, and has lots of good deals on "seconds" (produce that's banged up or about to go bad, and you get it for very cheap)
-- GREAT thrift shopping. Right down the road from us is an old car dealership that got turned into a massive thrift store. We don't buy hardly anything new anymore, especially clothes. You can even get furniture, housewares, cars, and the Habitat for Humanity restore has lumber, cabinets, all you could need to fix your home.
-- Lots of parks and museums with good weather to enjoy it. 2 hours from the beach, 4 hours from mountains for vacations that are cheap to get to.
3 -- Durham: It is changing and gentrifying daily. There are some great communities that are very affordable -- our house was around $170k, and our neighborhood has a pool and a playground and wonderful neighbors with lots of kids. A comparable neighborhood in Raleigh and Cary (we just looked) is 25-50% more. There are really only a couple of small, "bad" areas left, but they are shrinking and being targeted aggressively with anti-poverty programs.
4 -- Lots of improvements being made to downtown areas, new theatres, renovated museums, etc. Lots to do, and then even more a short drive away.
The bad:
1 -- No matter where you live, the public school system is terrible compared to other states. I remember moving from NY to NC when I was 9, and it was awful, and we were in the "good" North Raleigh schools. The schools have only gotten worse since then. The upside is that there is a huge homeschool community and lots of homeschool activities with parks and rec and libraries, so that's what we're doing.
2 -- You have to be careful about traffic. Everyone is right about 40, though the addition of 540 has helped. Just make sure you visit where you are going to live at 5pm and 8am try your commute.
3 -- Buttloads of sprawl. There is a ton of urban sprawl here, making biking tough. I live right near some major highways that really wouldn't be safe to bike, though we would love it if we could safely bike more places. However, we just drive a small, fuel-efficient car and plan our trips well. Sometimes it's also just annoying to see character-less strip-mall after strip-mall go up.
Feel free to PM me with any other questions. I live here, as do my parents and my husband's parents.