Nicehash has its place.  It's hard to start mining from zero.  You not only have to get a rig up and running, you have to figure out the miners, settings, stupid wallet  (spent days trying to download the blockchain on mist before giving up).  It pretty much took a month to really get mining.  I knew nothing.   During that time I was at least mining something.   

I still use winner for my mixed card rigs.