A better client is in the works.

I'm checking out DOGE coins just to see how much I can make overnight. Aside from that, I'm trying to mine altcoins that seem capable of rising quickly in value.

I'm also considering checking out multipools. They sound quite interesting, even if I don't really like the somewhat lazy mentality of not even bothering to find the most profitable coin.

Mining DOGE coins is kind of like playing Cookie Clicker... the crazy quantities of coins you get creates an extra sense of satisfaction, making it more fun than other coins. Investment in them isn't really profitable in the long term, though, so I can't see it being anything more than a fad.

I've also been having a bunch of problems with GUIMiner... I wish that there was a program to configure options without taking away the entire console 

Are exchange sites such as http://cryptsy.com a secure place to store funds, at least temporarily?

I've seen lots of warnings about online wallets, but I've never heard reports of BlockChain or CoinBase being hacked, so the seem pretty safe to me.