I don't want to sound like an asshole, but...
[...] I look it at this way. Why is anyone buying miners given the current BTC price knowing full well there is no return likely on these units even if you have lower power costs? [...]
Further to this there is no way an individual buying a few miners is going to compete with the farms not unless there is a rethink about pooling resources and the very nature of a "home" unit. At this point there is no reasonable argument for buying small miners with limited power availability. It was a bad investment at 369$ or even lower.
That's not entirely true. There are some countries where at this current price mining is still VERY profitable. Mainly, countries where the main power source is of the renewable kind and prices of energy are VERY low compared to other sources (i.e. coal, oil, etc).