BTW, did you do some earning comparison for the pools?
Well ... yes, but nothing more than keeping a few notes from my own mining returns since the very early days with this coin. At one time I had equal hashrates on two pools, then four pools. Returns in the short term varied widely. On some days, the smaller pool(s) would "get lucky" and generate a well-above-average return. Returns over the longer term tended towards roughly equal returns on each pool.
This result does makes sense. On a large pool, you will find blocks more often, but have to share the proceeds among a larger number of miners. On a small pool, you will find blocks less often but have to share the proceeds among a smaller number of miners. These factors tend to balance out over the long term.
One thing that did come out from the figures was that it was best to be on a smaller pool when the block rewards were higher (i.e. lower difficulty). I do not know exactly why this should be so - it's a kind of magic. It is as if sheer hashing power becomes less relevant when the difficulty is lower and "luck" comes more into play. I expect that somebody cleverer than me might be able to explain this effect using mathematics.
Edit: Looks like Maxminers is back onstream now.
