...but a hugely successful gen4 could also mean a return to 1btc/shares.
More than the all-time ~0.60btc/share from the good days of mining when people were spending money recklessly? How did you got the 1btc/share number? How much revenue is needed in $ or BTC for that big big dividends?
10% of the network reward is about .0063 per share weekly IIRC, which would generally support a share price around 1.0. Cost deductions offset by higher network % and/or sales profits could put it in the 1.0 - 1.5 range if mining works out at all like friedcat has planned. There's a few 'if's' in there, for sure, but thats my current view.
You got it wrong. It's not about the cost of 1 share. It's about the dividends! jommothy stated that a successful gen4 chip could bring in 1BTC per share in dividends form. I would like to know how he got to that number so I can see it's not just an attempt to raise the share price.