I'd like to keep this one on Scrypt; the prices on scrypt have fallen considerably, but I believe they will continue to fall faster than the machines will earn until the retail price of the machines reaches production costs plus a thin margin. I expect this to happen in the October time frame for scrypt as it's beginning to happen now for sha256.
Power efficiency is going to be a key factor.
Looking at GAW their hosting prices are cheaper than the cheapest electricity rates in the world....makes me wonder how they do that? Ponzi perhaps?
Actually i checked this myself and the rates were comparable to my electric cost... I assume that means they have a healthy margin on those machines and are just giving away the hosting at break even costs.
While I do not hold it against you for trying to keep this group on scrypt... holding the cash is allowing it to do nothing for us right now. The batch 8 S3+ went up on Bitmain for .58 BTC each (that is under $300) and hashes at 453 GH/s... buying BTC with that $1500 and then buying 5 S3+ will be adding 2.265 TH/s minimum by Sept 20th. That earns at least half the BTC cost back by the end of the year on a steady 20% increase through the end of the year. these S3s will be profitable well into 2015 and possibly later and represent one hell of a way to ensure this GB continues to make BTC.
The only other thing I would suggest, is that profitability on scrypt is just going to decrease as the ASICs get to narrower margins... if you do not feel it is worth buying something with these funds... buy BTC and split it evenly across all shares.