I'd say to anyone not to bother going into mining unless you already have the equipment or can get it extremely cheaply, as in pretty close to free.

It will take a good while to recoup any money invested in a rig, unless the BTC price increases a hell of a lot compared to the increases in difficulty to mine the BTC.

The thing is you cannot tell for sure what will happen with the BTC price or the difficulty level.

Basically at this moment BTC price looks very healthy, but future difficulty levels looks bloody awful for mining.

GPU is the important bit as far as gear is concerned... especially the Radeon HD 5850... this seems to be the best

The rest of the gear, keep it cheap, and keep it cool, and make sure you have the power

Mining s/w ... phoenix is the bong