In 10.3, hdid really only exists for backwards compatibility, and you should use hdiutil instead. To mount it anywhere you want, try hdiutil -stdinpass attach /Users/username/username.sparseimage -mountpath /Users/username (Note that I haven't tried this, but the man pages say that's how you mount at a path outside of /Volumes)

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After reading this entire thread, I was still left a little concerned. All of the tips result in the sparseimage being mounted as a device. This means the disk image is mounted on each users desktop with full write access! (Hardly a smart move.)

Thus I set about the quest of discovering exactly how FileVault does it. Surprisingly I couldn't find anything accurate online.

This however I think solves all the problems:

hdiutil attach /Users/username.sparseimage -stdinpass -owners on -mountpoint /Users/username -nobrowse

The differences are:
the disk image path has to go immediately after the verb attach;
-owners on specifies the permissions on the disk image should be respected;
-mountpoint is used instead of mountroot;
-nobrowse means the image is not mounted as a device in the Finder and thus not displayed in front of every user.

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