At the risk of sounding stupid again. Can a non-miner like me rent available resources or something along those lines?
Absolutely. Check out Leaserig.net.
You put BTC on deposit and then choose your rig size. They have 1 MHZ rigs for around .02 for 48 hours. For a coin like PCN with the low difficulty and the Block Finder Bonus, you should get back .03 or more. That's an easy way to accumulate some ProCoin.