I have only been in the game for a few weeks and started with only 9 Block erupters. I now have over 25Gh/s in ant miners and planning to break 200Gh/s soon.

I used Eligius from day one and its been great! 0% fee pool and its a merged mining pool so you can get BTC and NMC (name coin) at the same time.

Just my 2 BTC