If you've not read them already, David Lowery's ruminations on self-distribution are well-considered and well worth reading. His two posts on the subject have been linked to and blogged about by some others, so I won't be covering it in detail here. What makes his considerations worthwhile, I think, is that it's not breathless fist-pumping "WE'RE TAKING BACK THE CINEMAS NOW" kind of rhetoric. It's essayistic stuff -- he's unravelling a thread, trying to find where it leads. One notion that Lowery keeps returning to throughout the posts is music, namely indie rock distribution. (We seem to have a common fondness for Aimee Mann.) Lowery notes, and I agree, that for all of the parallels between DIY music and film, it isn't a perfect analogy. Generally, it takes a lot more technology, people, and work to bang out a good short film than it does to bang out a great single, and the difference between an LP and a feature-film is even greater.
I've got some more thoughts on this, but not enough time to dig into it. More later.
Until that post (whenever it comes), read Lowery's part one here. And part two here.