Yeah, the people at the top would really be making bank if the price of BTC was still north of $1,000... Still, this isn't an issue if you are saving your coins and waiting (Just remember your .0177 COULD be almost $20 again as long as you don't sell it now ) That person who received 1.6 BTC is probably counting on it being worth at least $1,500 some time in the future.

Most people with the huge hash rates rent space somewhere where they can get industrial power prices / don't have to worry about the noise and energy load on their house.

The "standard" rig these days is usually 4 cards of 7950/7970/280X/whatever, producing 2.5-3.0 MH/s... each rig draws a little over 1050 watts or so, which is a lot of heat to deal with. In the winter most of us think of it as free heat (helps offset the huge power bill), however, once it gets warmer it's going to become a bear to manage. With a fairly "small" setup of only 16 GPU's, you very rarely need to run the heat Just make sure you don't overload your breakers/wires... 12 gauge for 20 amps and 14 gauge for 15 amps minimum... an extra BTC or two is not worth a fire O.o

In the summer, a real cheap way to cool a space is to run cold water (from well/city supply) though a large radiator... then to irrigate with the warm water (doesn't shock the plants and water is usually really cheap per gallon)

Don't forget that this is a legitimate hobby for many of us - a lot of the fun comes from figuring this stuff out