Actually, while we are on the topic. Can someone explain how mining pools prevent people from just submitting a found block as their own? So normally a pool miner submits shares to prove they are working on a block. If they happen to find the block, surely the could just submit it as their own? Or am I missing something?
As I understand it, the hash the pool gives you to crack is essentially a signature for the transaction of the block payout the pool operator wants. So if you knew where he wants to pay out, you could. But then it would payout exactly there.
I'll ask again since nobody replied the last time...
If difficulty doesn't matter, why do pools even have a choice on what difficulty to go with? Why is there VarDiff? Since difficulty is meaningless, people who spent all the time developing those systems (as well as those who implemented them into their miners) wasted their time on something that supposedly means absolutely nothing.
Since difficulty has no real value, every pool/miner should be set at a hard-coded 1024 or 2048 or (insert difficulty here). We clearly have no need for more than one option.
Pooled mining is all about reducing variance. Vardiff enables you to achieve the same variance throughout the range of hashrates.
I personally believe that the current difficulty is too high for low hashers to receive a reasonable variance, but that's just my opinion.
I think for anyone whose hashrate is above 250 KH/s, the current share difficulty is fine if you mine for more than 24h.