Would it be fair to try to account for "lost coins" when determining the monetary base? There were estimates based on history of coin age of ~2M coins lost back in the sub-cent days.

Or invest in a mining company. :-)
They can buy hardware and mine for you. Preferably don't invest in mining bonds though.
Although with GLBSE down it must be somewhat harder. You can either go for something automated like Pyramining (yay I finally used my referral somewhere!) if you trust them or hand in hand transaction with one of the past GLBSE issuers. (check out BTC-MINING, it seemed like a good case)