Not to hijack, but does anyone have any experience with coinbase?  They seem easy to deal with.

I'd guess it has a lower variance on potential returns.  Both are tied to future difficulty, but with selling equip there is always a greater fool surfing ebay for you to sell off some mining rigs to.

And you can always mine with the gear as an alternative if the prices arent to your liking.

A few weeks ago, I bought a couple of 333MH/s asics for $25 and a blue fury for $150.  Theyre way more expensive now.  I doubt ill break even on them, but I enjoy them and it helped me get a few BTC in my wallet which I can roll into more hardware buys.  I just view the negative return as a transaction fee from going from $ to BTC..