Very helpful topic
I, however, prefer a steadier income of BTC's. Is deepbit the best mining pool?
I did some testing with the current PPS (0.00007931496901107 per share) and at the current difficulty at an average rate of 2min and 30 seconds per share; it would take on average 20 days to get 1 BTC.
I did the same math and I got about half per share without using any donations @ BTCGuild.