Depends on your desired volume level. You'll be able to run your amp harder and get the saturated tones you're after with it, but you may still run into some tone issues depending on how quiet you're trying to get things. I've found that hotplates work best at taking an amp's volume from say 9-10 down to 7 or so. It seems to be good for reasonable volume control but when you start to do more extreme settings of attenuation, you start to alter the tone/perceived tone.
While there are some things built in to the hotplate to offset some of the tonal changes that will take place as you diminish the volume, you will still notice it when you try and bring a raging beast down to conversation levels or whisper soft.
If you're looking for something to drop your amp's volume a few db's, I'd recommend also looking into something like the Weber Mass or similar in addition to Hotplates as they make some pretty solid attenuators. There are a few other makers out there. I only recommend the Weber because their attenuators are based around wattage rather than speaker resistance (hotplate), so you could use them if you had an 8ohm speaker or a 16 ohm speaker, etc.
If you're looking for more extreme attenuation for home settings, I'd recommend a smaller amp or a modeler for practice around the house. Those will run you about the same as the Hotplate and I think the tones are comparable some a high powered, heavily attenuated amp.
