With ~11 MLD2's one reaches (imho) the limit of what makes sense before it is time to move up the big step to an Antminer L3+, these are about 3x more costefficient (MH/unit_cost). With the expected increases in hashing power over the next 6mo, returns will fade fast (unless the price of LTC goes to the sky).
How do you figure that 3x number? The L3+ is over 100x faster and costs a bit less than 25x as much by my calculations.
L3+ is 2000$ for 500Mh/s = 4$/Mh
MLD2 is 65$ for 5Mh/s = 13$/Mh = 3x more expensive (preorder price)
Both need an external power (usb hub for MLD2), so that sort of evens out. The same for shipping and import duties
At the current $/LTC price, power overhead is marginal. The noise level/Mh/s is probably comparable.
One MLD2 is very quiet, but once you get to 10+ with external fans, it also starts to make a bit of sound. There is a point where scaling up doesn't make sense unless you can get them dead cheap 2nd hand maybe. That being said, they are massive fun.
The L3+ uses 288 chips divided over 4 boards to get to 500Mh. We only need 100 MLD2 chips on 1-2 boards.
Here is my proposal for the MLD3 : a 500Mh/s 100 chip unit on a single board, at halve the price of a L3+