And I am hoping (maybe wishful thinking) that it ends up costing somewhere between $2,000 to $4,000 to make it worth while. If it ends up costing like $10,000 like you suggest, then break even would occur somewhere around 9 months after starting to mine according to the figures I see here:
https://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/?sha256hr=9460.00&sha256p=2600.00&sha256pc=0.1000&sha256c=false&scrypthr=1000000.00&scryptp=1200.00&scryptpc=0.2500&scryptc=true&x11hr=450.00&x11p=120.00&x11pc=0.1000&x11c=false&quarkhr=450000.00&quarkp=75.00&quarkpc=0.1000&quarkc=false&groestlhr=1.00&groestlp=825.00&groestlpc=0.1000&groestlc=false&blake256hr=11.20&blake256p=600.00&blake256pc=0.1000&blake256c=false&neoscrypthr=400.00&neoscryptp=400.00&neoscryptpc=0.1000&neoscryptc=false&lyra2rev2hr=30.00&lyra2rev2p=600.00&lyra2rev2pc=0.1000&lyra2rev2c=false&cryptonighthr=2800.00&cryptonightp=600.00&cryptonightpc=0.1000&cryptonightc=falseðashhr=108.00ðashp=600.00ðashpc=0.1000ðashc=false&equihashhr=1180.00&equihashp=600.00&equihashpc=0.1000&equihashc=false&e=CEX.ioI only paid attention to Litecoin itself. If you just stick to Litecoin for the stability and to avoid the price fluctuations you would mine one Bitcoin at the first 1 GHs model in 380 days, so 10K in earnings should come somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 10 months.
Now, here's the problem: We all know that network difficulty doesn't stay stuck at a static level, specially these days it's sky rocketing by the days, and with these powerful machines under circulation its going to cause Litecoin's difficulty to even sky rocket at a much faster rate, so with all that said I would expect a more realistic break even to occur way much farther than 1 year after operating the miner, that's IF the miner doens't break down before it happens. If that's the projection then I would much rather just buy the Litecoins directly. So because of this the price of the miners should be priced accordingly without any greed getting in the way so that the operator can have a fighting chance at earning a profit after reaching break even point.