I hope someone comes along soon and takes the market off them with all the trimmings a big exchange needs for the upcoming big players, Trade Hill maybe?
The other thing we need is an easier way for new U.S. investors to get started. Coinbase would be a great service if it worked. All they ever say is, "Sorry, Coinbase has reached its maximum number of bitcoin purchases for the moment. Please try again later. We'll continue raising this limit over time." If your're willing to keep trying the button hour after hour, they might eventually allow you to buy 10 BTC per day. Whoopee.
Sending international wire transfers to Japan is too expensive, both in time and money. Dwolla takes forever to set up, limits the size of your transfers, and is down today due to Dos attack. Other services seem to charge ridiculous fees, if they accept USD at all.
Why all the entry barriers?
I've been trying to buy bitcoins for weeks with very limited luck. Can someone tell me a good way to get USD to some exchange where I can actually buy some serious bitcoin?
One thing that's stopping the growth of Bitcoin is how difficult it is to actually buy them!
I live in country Australia where people are not overly interested in Internet things, at least the people I know. It has been easy for me to get money in and out of Gox, its the constant lagging they have that worries me. As far as other exchanges go I worry some about them from the hacks and losses of the last 2 years, Gox seems to have got their act together.
Good luck with getting your BTC, hope it all works out for you, I cant give advice on how to's in the States.