total cost of ownership & grids

so networks went from circuit to packet mode partly because of the stat muxing gain.
is there a stat muxing gain for CPUs hosting virtual services? looking at eScience, I doubt it very much - most the apps want all the cycles they can get and then some so why dont those greedy physicistas lay off and buy their own computers for the LHC then, eh?

and why dont they just use botnets if its so useful - irc is so much more efficient than SOAP as a control plane and even with dyndns the anonimity seems good enough to stop them being closed down very often...

or xenoservers (oh stop it:)