I had one click for $1.72 and another for 13 cents that aren't reflected in my earnings. Worst off all I got a click that pays 17 cents per thousand. WTF? Did all of these go to public service or something, or is this a google error?

It just corrected itself somewhat. I still have one click that's a fraction of a penny.

smart pricing sucks... i have a $30 day, then the same traffic gets me $15, now it gets me about $4

Google sometimes filters out clicks it deems as invalid. For example if a visitor clicks on 3 ads in the space of a minute they may filter two of them out.

I've been doing adsense on multiple sites for quite a while now and often can't figure out how the heck they make some of their calculations. There was a great article in Business week a few weeks back about click fraud so I'm sure they're taking extra precautions and filtering out some stuff as well and sometimes it does take time to refresh and recalculate earnings.

I have a Halloween site. The earnings per click plummets the more clicks I get during a day. My click through rate however is super-duper high!