Running 8x R9 290X is going to cost $300/month in electricity to make maybe .5 BTC at most; and now that BTC is in the shitter at $420/USD we're losing nearly 30% by mining alone.
It'd be nice for some of the dedicated and die-hard supporters of the thread to band together and see what we can do about it, but you're right, by more people having a higher hashrate - everybody loses.
What a conundrum.
Maybe time to go for the new maxwell 9xx series with their low powerconsumption( gtx 970 vs 290x =100watt less)
About their hashrates we have to see yet.
At this point I don't think it makes any sense to invest in any new GPU hardware unless it gave a dozen times the current hashrate of a current top-end card for the same electricity. Even the leasing market seems to have dried up, at least in my neck of the woods. I'm mining at a loss, rationalizing it based on the fact that the weather has turned cooler so I'm getting some benefit from the heat produced again. (Propane costs in my area ran way higher than electrical heating costs last winter.)