All valid points, & exactly the reasons I won't use Eligius or anything else even slightly connected with Luke-Jr.
After reading up some, I chose p2pool - it's decentralised nature really appealed to me. The Bitcoin mining scene will be worse off without the Guild - thank you eleuthria for being an upstanding & trustworthy member of the mining community - in these times of badly coded scam pools - you will be sorely missed.
I agree and am looking for a new pool myself. Might just be a good time to bow completely out of bitcoin too.
I really don't like the direction it is heading.
I gave slush a chance years ago, tried him again at beginning of last year and nothing changed.
I saw they updated the site but he doesn't offer anything special. If anything I recall them removing merged mining and now they are "redeveloping" it. seriously I'll give a mining fee to someone else kthx.
I won't join a pool that avg's a block every 24 hrs or worst. There needs to be a few to make it worth my time.