I would have to agree that the old IM market stand under a waterfall of cash and try to catch just a small percentage philosophy has gone out the window. I personally found it a lot easier to generate a good income consulting directly for brick and mortor businesses for IM than selling/promoting IM online. Everyone gets bombarded with bonuses that will never be read.

I find the smaller niches quite easy to promote in, JOb/employment niche - difficult to constantly produce content but good conversions, in fact I ahve a page that converts at 48% in this niche.
Physical sub niches -i.e. too short too tall, too fat etc. high conversion but not enough traffic for my liking.

I am a few weeks away from launching a new product in the hobby Niche its a hobby that is currently extremely hot but there only seems to be physical information products in the market and plenty of them. Massive range of keywords with heaps of traffic.

I'll keep you posted but I expect it to be a ripper.