Here's my config options for 3 flashed 6950s and one unflashed 6950, maybe it will help:

--scrypt -o pool:port -u user1 -p password --thread-concurrency 6144,6144,6144,5920 -I 19 -g 1 -w 256 --gpu-platform 0 --auto-fan --auto-gpu --gpu-engine 600-920,600-920,600-885,600-885 --temp-target 77 -s 5 --gpu-vddc 1.1 --api-listen --api-allow W:127.0.0.1:4028

Have you tried different pools?  I generally have 3 in my config because I can.

Also registering my interest, although only for a few.
Power here is 0.23 AU/kWh and half my profit goes on power costs so...

Occasionally, when I start up cgminer on my pc with a flashed 6950 it will hover around 20-30 kH/s for a minute or two before heading up to 400-450 kH/s. I don't know why and it only does it every now and then.

Have you let it run at least 5 minutes?  Maybe it will pick up speed after a bit.

There's a good guide on here about setting up your card too, although bad setup shouldn't cause that bad a problem.

I was the biggest fish on fc is a geek pool when I went to bed yesterday and total pool has rate was about 13 MH/s.
Same time today I'm somewhere between 5-8th and the pool has 65MH/s!
Also the difficulty has doubled :/

Glad I got in early and knocked off a bunch of coins but now back to LTC so I can pay for the power

^Careful, I think that link is a scam

edit: post above me got deleted so not relevant anymore

For me it's the deflationary aspect - if everyone is encouraged to hoard coins because they go up in value then it will never truly be useful as a currency.  If I have the choice of transacting in BTC and $ I can:

• Spend the BTC and watch the $ I don't spend decrease in value (assuming it's cash)
• Spend the $ and watch the BTC I have increase in value (ignoring short term volatility, obviously)

Therefore I can't see it becoming widespread to the same extent as fiat currencies which are generally slightly inflationary and controlled (hopefully) by people who know what they are doing.

I'm open to counter arguments though, just my 0.02

I read somewhere that theoretically you can divide bitcoins pretty much infinitely (don't have the link - sorry), it just requires an update of the code.  So 1 BTC or 0.1 BTC would still be enough for the entire world economy as you can divide it into 10e-30 (say) 'chunks' with a software update. Of course that 1 BTC would be worth trillions of dollars at that stage but each chunk would be fractions of a cent (as it is currently).

I guess it's like the situation in Zimbabwe recently where they just kept removing '0's from their currency to stop the numbers from becoming ridiculous...

I just had a pointless post deleted so I guess the mods crack down on pointless posting.  That would stop a lot of it I guess if they monitor these threads closely (which it seems they do given that my post was up less than 5 minutes).

cgminer is pretty popular though likely a little more difficult to use.  I'm marginally computer literate and didn't have any trouble setting up a batch file to run it as there is a lot of information online (just Google cgminer + whatever coin you want to mine for setup guides).
Also there is cgwatcher which automates the process of restarting cgminer depending on variables you can set (x hours, if hash rate drops etc) so you don't lose a lot of mining time if your rig crashes.
See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159267.0

I feel bad for everyone that pre-'ordered' with BFL but since I'm waiting on delivery of an Avalon I selfishly hope it's a scam so the difficulty doesn't get too high too fast. Sorry   

I just pointed ~2 MH/s from my LTC rig at one the the FC pools for a bit of fun.  It's nice to get more than a couple of coins per day.
LTC difficulty was about 40 when I ordered the parts before the whole Cyprus issue and I was looking at a nice bunch of coins.  By the time the parts arrived...