Well, I tried an alt-coin switching pool (tompool) and made less than half. Once again Eligius wins out.

While all the stuff about the payout system is interesting, it has been my real world experience that I make more coin here, even setting a 1 percent donation as automatic. I'll probably still play around some as I go, but at least for bitcoin, Eligius is by far the best pool I've tried. Second was BTCguild, and I make more here.