Strangely the hash rate increase has been modest, and now we are past half way in the race with a namecoin block in second place. I wonder if we'll see any big miners make a move before it's over.
I fear Im not entirely surprised. Your problem is called GPUmax. Most big miners have an account there, and if you do the math, even a 16BTC bounty hardly makes it worth the effort.
Imagine you have 100GH. That will net you on average ฿63 per day at 100% PPS, so over the course of the race, 126 BTC. On gpumax that will earn you >170 BTC. So even if you win all the jackpots, you still lost in the end unless you not only win the race, but also get lucky on short blocks.
Now I would have thought an event like this would attract more smaller miners that are currently mining on "competing" pools. Getting ~100% average on bitminter or say eclipse or ozcoin, is a wash, but having a shot at 16 BTC bonus is a nice extra, particularly if you have only a few GH, so why not switch pools? I guess not enough people have read about this?
