What is that at current rates, 500-600/month at the most? I fear that when the difficulty shoots up shortly, you'll once again not even be able to cover your hosting costs.
I think you are quite right, but there are many unknowns inside, so I really don't know how much I can expect. This also depends on market price, 1% in December with slower pool hashrate was really under expenses, now with parity it looks better. If market prices, higher difficulty or whatever really need to set higher fees to make pool running, I'll probably do it, because I prefer higher fees for few satistfied users before closing the pool.