Call me a pessimist but I just don't see the future in BTC. My disclaimer: I'm a newbie as well. In BTC, playing and researching for just a month now.
Exchanges factor: Issue with MtGox as an example. These exchanges mushroomed together with the BTC bubble (if you don't mind me calling that), probably without much security measures in place. A friend of mine had 20 btc in with them and still hasn't got it back even though MtGox claims that they are in the process of returning all their customers.
Greed factor: Even on this forum, you can find the btc pyramid scheme. People are just ripping each other off like crazy.
Mining factor:
http://bitcoinx.com/profit/ calculates the profitability of mining. As the difficulty rate goes up, it'll be less profitable to mine it. The early adopters will want to see btc continue until they cash out but that's it.
I think those that got in early benefitted from the USD30/btc (if they cashed out). I just don't see enough businesses using btc (granted btc is still in the infancy stage). Even though
http://bitcoinx.com/profit/ is selling bitcoin tshirts; but notice that it's not even accepting btc as one form of payment.
In another post, I had mentioned more reasons why it's very discouraging for newbies to enter the bitcoin scene (from my perspective of course). Without newbies, there won't be newer markets.