I don't see how ROI on the miners can be achieved if the difficulty increases so fast before the miners can even get to us and make any respectable $$$. Looks like our only hope is if the BTC to USD rate goes up and that's not a gamble anyone should be taking with their money, and on the other hand if BTC to USD drops then you can see how the people mining are the ones that are screwed even further here...
Personally I don't believe the cost of the hardware itself is justified, it's too expensive and the hardware manufacturers keep the buyers thinking that at current mining difficulty and rate they will get their money back in 3 months, but that is not true.
When I purchased the miners in July 24 or so the difficulty was about 17.34G at a BTC to USD rate of $650 expecting to get a decent return, now I still don't have my miners and I have to wait another 1 month, have spent $125,900 USD to Spondoolies, difficulty is now at 23.84G at a BTC to USD rate of $500. By the time I get my miners up and working the difficulty will be about 30.00G if not more and even if the rate stays at $500 I'm basically still screwed because the miners will probably not make their money back before they out live their useful life.
Everyone better think well and hard before buying mining equipment on pre-order with 2 months waiting time, never again. I hope I can get my money back by running my 29 x SP30 miners until they end up in the bin by January or February 2015...
Mining Hardware producers like Spondoolies and the rest are pretty much safe. We are the ones worried about getting our money back while they sell us expensive hardware on pre-order.
Anyone who pre-orders anything with a lead time of a couple/several months doesn't get the right to complain in my opinion. I don't care if you spent $4000 or $40,000 worth of hardware. You went online and spent money on something you knew wasn't available yet, wasn't realized yet, wasn't proven yet, wasn't realistic yet. Of course the bitcoin manufacturer is going to act like a car salesman. They are there to sell and take your money. While they won't lie to you, they may omit some information that may change your mind about ordering their hardware. I'll only pre-order or give a small interest free loan to a company if it is guaranteed I'll make all my money back and then some.