I started with DogeCoin as my first cryptocoin. I'm having fun mining various coins on my lowly ATI 7750 card (~140 kh/s). So far I'm up to 0.3 BTC after mining DogeCoin, CatCoin, MoonCoin, and now CoinyeCoin. I wish I could get into actual Bitcoin mining but the cost of entry is so high with returns that are so low.
That seems like a recurring theme. People would like to be here for Bitcoin only but they feel that the cost of entry is too high for them. The community needs to solve that problem if they want more widespread use. Maybe it is time to spread the concept of mBTC or some other sub-whole-coin system.
Not everybody has to be a BTC miner. You can make your BTC mining other coins like this guy did. Any coins that have any longevity will eventually become unprofitable to small-time miners, so you just move on to another and trade the coins you make for BTC and it's essentially the same.