I would really love to be a part of this but that would require me buying a PC to run 24/7. What sort of hardware would be required to run a node? Would a low power PC be acceptable or does it need to be capable of doing a lot of hashing, etc?
You could run a micro on EC2 for $14/mo to do it.
A 5$ digital ocean VPS would probably be a way better deal! As a Darkcoin early investor, let's just say I'll be running a few masternodes

By the way I think this is an amazing idea, darkcoin is a living, breathing thing and it's always evolving it seems. Waiting to go in for the kill on inferior coins.
Darkcoin is a panther. Killing Machine.

What happens when max coins is reached?
Let's worry about that in 75 years or something.