Seriously though, I just recently discovered the wonderful world of crypto-currencies, but was bummed when I discovered I was late to the party and that the ASICs were just around the corner, but I really wanted to start mining. But then I discovered that scrypt based currencies are still profitable to mine with GPUs so i quickly built a rig with 2 7950's to start. I think I will just play the waiting game to see if these ASICS actually materialize, then maybe use some mining proceeds to buy one months down the road, but i'm sure the wait time will still be ridiculous, and by then the difficulty may be too high.
This was my experience as well. I bought a rig at 53 diff and then for some reason everyone discovered litecoin. Between 53 and 100 I had to figure out how the miners work and all the fun stuff so mining was experimental.
After I finally got things under my control it was 100+ diff. In less than a month it shoots from 100 to 600 now the rig is basically worthless.
Thinking back I sat and waited 3 months for BFL to deliver thinking that GPU mining would be a waste if my precious asic would be here along with others. Diff was below 13 and I could of made quite a dent in you know what I mean.