Even without knowing anything about algorithms Bitcoins and other stuff, the fact is: Commercial solutions are slower and more expensive, how a person with no experience make something better, faster and cheaper?
I think you might be assuming too much about his level of experience and knowledge on the matter, lets not rush to conclusions.
I'll defiantly be watching this thread, but in a way it would be kind of a shame to see mining move away from the GPU and onto dedicated hardware, it would mean the end of the garage miner. It seems like the people who would be most interested in buying these would be small companies and start ups, only the die-hard miners would buy hardware that could
only be used for mining bitcoins, even if they were cheaper than GPUs.
But on the other hand, I wouldn't want to see this type of thing only be available to a select few either. I'm kind of torn, but honestly I would probably buy one.