Holding on to my coins for now, but what makes me uneasy, is the feeling that I don't understand what's going on this time.

I've seen DOS attacks, exchanges go down, bad news, unsustainable price jumps, etc.. but my (perhaps overly simplified) interpretation of the China news was that it's just bringing them in to line with what we've already been doing, providing ID to use the exchanges? Surely that's not such a big deal, yet here we are bouncing around 800 on stamp  

I think I've underestimated the drop this time.. I sold 30% of my coins and then got back in at 12% lower @ 860 USD on BitStamp, but for the first time in months I don't really know what to do.. Tempted to sell a lot of coins..

I'd outline what it is, what it isn't, how it works, how it can be used, the advantages, disadvantages, and legality side of things.

Somewhere in there I'd mention the 550% price increase over the last 6 months, including the volatility and unsustainable growth issues. It can't increase like this forever, else 1 coin would end up being worth more than all the money in the world, so it has to level out, which in turn puts off those who are just in it to make money, so it absolutely must become a useful second/alternative currency in order to survive long term. Richard Branson accepting Bitcoin for Virgin Galactic is a sign that business leaders are starting to take interest, however imo right now it's mostly done for PR/Marketing than true belief. The software/infrastructure isn't really ready for mainstream adoption, with exchanges suffering numerous problems in recent weeks. Most of my money comes out via direct debit and I don't believe that kind of functionality exists yet; if utility companies started accepting it, as an option that provided some kind of further discount over DD, then that'd be a game changer and I've not seen much talk about that aspect yet.

This was typed very quickly, because I'm off to watch Dr Who

That's a great point, thank you

Perhaps I'm missing some key info, but say I paid 1 Bitcoin yesterday for a laptop worth $725. Today I take funds out of my bank, which costs me $15 in fees, and then right now I'd have to pay $790 to get my coin back.

If the price is more stable in the future, perhaps this kind of thing will start to make more sense to me, but that seems to be several years away. Right now, it seems that more people are interested in Bitcoin from a get-rich-quick perspective, which makes stability hard because people will start selling if they believe it's no longer making the quarterly % increases they were after.

I have done

I jumped during the April price drop and have limit orders setup to buy whenever there's a significant price drop. I believe in Bitcoin and hope it becomes very successful.

I'm not all in Bitcoin because even though I believe the price will go up next year, I have to be sensible and not risk what I can't afford to lose. I also can't yet pay any of my (many!) bills using Bitcoin (even if I want to), so I'm still forced to hold fiat else I'd be suffering horrible transfer fees constantly moving the money around.

I have an open mind and enjoy hearing other opinions, so thank you for responding

I can see that you can now use Bitcoins to pay for various things, including food, property and even a ride on a Virgin Galactic spaceship, but why would I want to actually spend coins when the value has increased by 30,000% over the last 2 years? Perhaps I don't yet fully understand all the benefits, but holding on to coins (or working to increase the amount you own) seems far more sensible at the moment.