4) Yes, I am a common man.  I am currently unemployed.  Yes, right now, 1.2TH is PUNY... when competing against PETAHASHES of corporate greed.  The last time I checked total network hashing power two weeks ago it was 14PH, today it's 37PH.  How much of that is individuals doing mining?  I doubt individuals constitute more than 2% of all that power.  We ALL have reason to bitch because it takes far more than 1.2TH get a decent return.  It PAINS ME that the common working man cannot participate in mining and make a decent return from a level of mining power he can afford.  Pool-based mining is not a necessary component of Bitcoin or any other Cryptocurrency.  Pools are a reaction to the ceaseless rise of the difficulty level beyond belief, caused by those that can afford to purchase a Hell of a lot more hashing power than 1.2TH.  Without pools we would all be seeing zero return from our miners except for the extremely rare found block.