jbab and RealT, I understand your concerns. I just started a month ago and luckily found a mining rig seller on Craigslist. Met him for coffee and picked his brain for 2 hours. There is a lot of advice to be given in order for "regular" folks like us to get in. Fortunately for me I got up to speed in time to buy at $140 (imagine $10!).

I think there is plenty of Bits to be earned by some savvy miners or traders who seek out local consultation customers, personal and business. People are curious and they need someone to explain how it works, in person. I started an earlier post and I'm currently gathering resources to sell to merchants and hopefully empower merchants to promote and bring in their customers.

As cool as it is to see $200/BTC, the # of users needs to accelerate. With smart phone apps and low cost transactions, BTC is already better than USD in some ways, but it needs to be *real* for a lot more people, which means salesmanship.

 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=320335.new#new