You and me have different goals in mind. I am in for the long term while you are satisfied with a small jackpot. The reinvestment allowed me to hash today 21x faster than 1 year ago and to earn ~1/3 of my initial investment this month. From what you are saying you have stopped hashing and you have moved along. I'm not interested in that.
Difficulty now: Aug 19 2014 23,844,670,039 170,686,797 GH/s
Difficultly 1 year ago: Aug 24 2013 65,750,060 470,657 GH/s
As a ratio: 23,844,670,039/65,750,060 = ~362
So difficulty has gone up 362 times, but your hash power has only gone up 21 times.
You are hashing at roughly 1/17th the equivalent rate from a year ago.
Stopping hashing and keeping the money would seem to have been the better outcome.
Keeping up with the difficulty is almost impossible, but keeping the profits on the green is easier. I can't stop hashing because bitcoin mining is that profitable that even if the above ratio is way off I am still making a profit. If I would've stopped hashing I would've made 0 BTC and 0$.