i totally get that the heyday of mining is long past. however, i have learned a LOT about currency and i find the whole thing fascinating. i am nowhere near breaking even on the specialized ASIC mining hardware, but i haven't lost money, either. i've been able to upgrade the miners by selling the old ones for more or the same than what i paid for them.
the current miner is the 'new' r-box miner. it is capable of much higher difficulty, so it is more efficient. we'll see what happens.