Hey Dusty, I had a look at your site a few days ago and followed you on twitter. I was interested until I had a look at a few of the people advertising themselves. The ones I saw looked pretty boring. ;-) I would be interested in talking to you more about it though. tmhaines at googles mail system.
I know a few people using Dusty's service, for most it covered the hosting bills and has much better returns than Google AdSense. He's putting a lot of energy into making it even better.
I suggest diversifying your ad real estate, at least initially, there's no reason you can't have Featured Users + Adsense + Deck, etc. Just don't go overboard with the # of ads on the screen, you'll drive people away.
You may also try using Google AdManager or OpenX and selling ads yourself. I prefer the former because Google handles the hosting.