...annnnd it's paid for itself, USD-wise. 33 BTC earned in just 91 hours.

on which lucky pool you are?
Well, uh, I didn't mine BTC the whole time. Some of the time I was [solo]mining TRC, which I then dumped on an exchange for BTC.
Sadly, mining to bitcoind directly does not work well.
I use
eloipool with bitcoind.
Could you explain what about it doesn't work well?