I have no idea what happened toward the end of this thread, but Jim's blog is at
Lease Purchase Journal. He has said on another forum that his miles remained pretty steady through the winter and he does seem to like the Volvo.
My miles (at Con-way Truckload) were pretty bad in December and January but seem to be turning back toward normal. I had my personal best week ending on 2/7/09 (4,236 paid miles) and the wait time between loads has been less lately. If not for a US Xpress driver running over my fender and costing me time in the shop, this past week would have been a decent one too.
The word on the street is that we have something like a hundred people waiting for trucks right now though. Unless you're planning a long introspective period of meditation before you get out on the road, the smaller company paying a few bucks less might not be a terrible idea in the short term.