For example even with 1 billion difficulty it still makes sense to mine with KNC Miner and it is very simple to calculate returns - 1 billion difficulty equals 7158.278TH/s, so if you have 400GH/s miner = 400/7158000=0.0000558815 shares of the 3600 daily coins=0.2011734 coins per day=6.13BTC per month.
It does. And it also, IMO, indicates the coming "New Normal" in BTC mining. No Aston Martin bought in six weeks. A nice little sideline income, a great hobby, and participation in a community. Hardware someone can buy on line, have it shipped FedEx, comes with a manual and power supply, you plug it in, and start mining.
The prices are going to need to reflect the New Normal, of course. Now they don't. But they will.
Somehow, none of that sounds like a tragedy to me.