I spent an hour yesterday looking everywhere for the reply button, at the end I just gave up, I felt stupid, I felt like I was missing something, should of read the guidelines!

So I am considering ordering a 400 ghz miner, which I believe would reach me in October/November at the earliest... With all the BFL products coming online and the massive increase in difficulty, would it still be a profitable acquisition?

I'd hope to at least cover all costs $7,000 for miner and electricity etc and make a few thousand over a space of a year, is this a realistic expectation? or is it only really the first users using the 1,500 ghz miners that are going to make some real money?

I appreciate that everyone wants less miners to make more $ for themselves but I'd appreciate honest feedback please, I have tried the bitcoinx profit calculator but i don't quite understand how I gauge an accurate prediction from it.

If I wanted to try and make some money through bitcoin, would you consider it safer to just purchase bitcoins outright and pray that they rise in value? Personally I think the price will fall over the next 6 months so it's probably not the best time to do that either...

Thanks in advance for any advice and thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge on this forum, i have found it to be very informative.