I have had to do this a lot. I always try first the quick route of importing the logo as SVG and a quick procedural clean up of removing doubles, turn tris to quads, remesh, etc. Sometimes is enough and it works and it serves the purpose, other times there is no other way and I have to remodel the whole thing. But I always start with the quick dirty process because you know how it is, clients always need things fast for some reason, only if it fails I quickly turn to going hands in and model.
And as you say, just to not regret going the SVG direction, you have to make the decision fast if it will be worth it, just so you don’t spend too much time cleaning up and quickly say ok, I’ll just go for modeling and be done with this.
