I've been out of the game for the past 2 weeks since i sold my ASIC blades and my Antminers finally came in...
I see that the pool has shrunk... whats up with that?
Also has the "pool luck" calculation changed? Its showing 225% right now, yet the past 3-4 blocks were all over 4-5 hours each.
I can't speak for anyone else, and I'm only a drop in the pool, but I've recently redirected my hashing to P2Pool, via P2Pool.io (there's only three miners active on this node at the moment). I'm tempted to run my own p2pool node but I wanted to try it out first. To be honest I have itchy feet, I'm used to regular payouts from Slush, and the p2p payouts have been much smaller with longer gaps so far, I know this should average out though. I do prefer the concept of p2p, but Slush is more like the warm, reassuring blanket of home.
I have had bad experiences with those pools before, but with Doge coin. I've noticed that there sometimes are address listed in the payout section, but not in the mining section. Usually they get the most, yet never mine. Too many people trying to skim off the top and scam people.
EDIT: I just checked out
http://p2pool.io/ How are there payouts already if there are no solved blocks yet?