Y'all may have done the math, but you didn't do it very well. I used to be into the prepaid thing, and T-Mobo was an' is a good way to go. They still offers the $100 card that gives 1000 anytime minutes, which works out to 10 cents a minute, with the only string being the minutes expire one year later... VERY good deal for prepaid.

Virgin in comparison wants to charge you 18 cents a minute, or almost double. Guess that's better than the old '25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes used in a day, then 10 cents a minute after that', but not by much.

Virgin's has pulled some monthly plans outta their heiny lately that aren't bad, but you've got to be willing to pay $35/month and up and use a lot of night & weekend minutes (what Virgin calls 'primetime' minutes, haha)- its not a bad deal, but if you talk less than 300 minutes a month and/or don't want to commit to or manage a monthly plan, there's definitely better ways to go.

Oh, and Cingular's prepaid is pretty much the same deal as Virgin, they're just a little trickier about it... decent PLANS if you're willing to shell out $40 month and up with them; and while they offer 10 cent a minute prepaid with unlimited mobile-to-mobile (sounds good at first), you'll find that they ALSO charge you a dollar-a-day fee on every day that use your phone.
So if you're like most peeps and use your phone every day, congrats! You're givin' Cingular 30 bucks a month PLUS 10 cents a minute! Such a deal! Not.

Seriously, all prepaid has got its strings, but T-mobile's 'big card' seems to have the fewest. And a good rate with no plan to hold to or constantly change or worry 'bout overages with. If I was still going prepaid I'd go with them.

Oh, and Tracfone is just plain heinous.