I think the disconnect is "small" vice "hobby." 

I am a total noob, learning as I go, with the goal of turning this into a "small" mining operation one day: something from which I can draw a modest income.  I care a great deal about Hashing power per KW, ROI at price per hash per difficulty, etc.  As a "hobby" this doesn't apply IMO, because you don't care if your cash flow ever exceeds your operational costs, nevermind your cost of living.

Now when someone posts a question like "How can I get my 700MHHz Radeon GPU to kick out X KH/s for solo mining," it doesn't sound like they're asking from the perspective of a hobbyist: they want hashing power, as much as they can, presumably to maximize yield.

You really can't fault experienced miners who, when reading stuff like this, feel compelled to offer a dose of reality with thier advice.