Thanks for such a good thread and informative posts!
I'm getting the gear together while waiting for 10 Erupters to arrive, and have a very noob question. I've looked around but can't find an answer.
I'm not sure how the miners work so don't know whether there is any advantage of using USB3.0 vs UCB2.0 hubs. (for running 10 Erupters of a USB hub or two). I'm guessing no, but to be sure...
Get 2 DLink 7 port USB hubs. Each will reliably run 6 erupters. Avoid daisy chaining the hubs together, otherwise a number of the erupters may not be recognized or may intermittently not mine. You can directly connect each hub to one of the two USB ports on the Pi.
I have 18 erupters on one Pi, using 3 DLink hubs, and a passive USB hub to connect all 3 hubs to one USB port on the Pi. Running MinePeon. System is stable and mines great.