Now when sieving, there are quite many factors and most of them are outside the active window. These factors do not score much now, but it will increase if the active window is moving and no prime is found.

Imagine: After one or two years the candidates are already sieved up to 500T or more and the probability of finding a factor is 10 times smaller.

While the active window is moving by 500000, the score of the people who sieved for example 100G @50T will increase as much as someone who sieves 1T @500T.
So the effort is 10 times as big to keep up with those who are active now. The sieved factors below the active window do score even less.
In 1..2 years the computers are maybe 2..4 times as fast, but it will be not enough just to increase the score as fast a an idle account which was active in summer 2003.

That might be somewhat discouraging.

It is a bit difficult to explain the point...
What do you think? Any comments or ideas?

(a little bit philosophical) biwema