The difficulty factor should be correct and updated as already present on the page; if getdifficulty returns a different value, I do not know why that is. Perhaps you haven't yet downloaded all the blocks (it's a process that takes several hours upon first starting Bitcoin, and until it's completed you cannot generate)?
As for the speed, a midrange AMD GPU will give 150-200khps (meaning two-three weeks per 'win'), while most CPUs will provide at the very best a tenth of that (I have a low-range CPU and it gives ~2.5khps).
The difficulty factor is correct. I've got 700khps; top shows ~200% cpu usage (it's a dual-core machine). Holy gigaherz Batman, I've got a monster in my spare room!
Though not yet an "official" project, Google has released a Bitcoin client. As you may remember, there were concerns here about what the government/legal reaction to Bitcoin [1] will be, and the significance of certain groups lending their support to it. EFF and SIAI accept Bitcoin donations, which helps, and this action by Google is another big step.
Previous articles: SIAI accepting Bitcoin donations, Discussion on making money with Bitcoin (Clippy warning on the latter)
[1] In short, it's an anonymous P2P crypto-currency with no transaction fees, in which new units are generated by spending computer cycles computing hashes until you find one with specific properties.