I made 210.00 profit so far this weekend, by putting in around 2 hours of work. I might be able to pull off another 200+ if i'm lucky. It's just how you play. I'll be bowing out of the minifigure game by the end of the week, and move on.
While I agree with some of your points, and agree the opportunity to make money on these is short, it is one of the best ways to double your money quickly if you know what you are doing. I mean, jeez... spend a few hundred on saturday, and by monday you have doubled your money. That's how insane this stuff can be, especially with insanely popular series like these, monsters, lego movies ets.
Once you go through about 20 bags, the "smooshing" becomes easy, especially if you have collected these long enough to know pieces to look for (lego is repetetive, and if you've collected lego you would know this because lego repeats bottles, genie lamps, little discs, swords, guns in almost every pack and only one or two characters have those so that helps you narrow it down). It's even more fun when your kid helps you go through a case, which can be done in about a half hour if you have some help.