If you look at Bitcoins as analogous to the Gold Rush of 1849, it might provide a better parallel.  Early miners made a lot of money, while later miners "made a living".  If you had never heard of a gold rush, and 1849 hit, and you heard of a lot of people getting rich on gold, you (as an uneducated person) might be tempted to buy gold.  This, of course, would be silly, except that a lot of people buying gold drives the price of gold up, and so as gold gets attention, people see that others have made money buying gold, and so you get the bubble.  People buying Bitcoin is a lot like people buying gold in 1849 - it doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you believe that it either is a) a good store of wealth, or b) going to rise in utility /value in the future.

Bitcoin is going to get more attention primarily because it has solved a problem that has never been solved before - Beenz and Digicash didn't solve it.  Paypal and Mastercard didn't solve it.  Cash doesn't solve it.  Bitcoin has a very clever solution to a very difficult problem.  And it's the first to solve it.  So Bitcoin is going to get attention.  And with attention comes investment.  And with investment comes a rise in value.  As long as Bitcoin continues to GROW in the attention it gets, chances are good that people will try to figure out how to invest in it.  And to see that there were only 61,000 accounts in the Mt. Gox leaked database, that shows how truly tiny the Bitcoin community is.  In fact, there were less than 10,000 prior to May 15th or so.