Is there a place we can find reviews of the coins and possible pump and dumps?

I will probably be replaced by another before then.  esp. with anonymity rather than pseudoanonymity like zerocoin

I use guiminer, i find it to be much simpler. Have you compared your speeds and settings with the wikis?

Things to consider:
They've caused crashes before due to instability.
Its one of the most well known exchanges.
They been in legal trouble.
Issues with withdrawing for people.
They require lots of info to get started.

Many of these could be the causes of the higher prices on their sites.