Foxmoth: what you say regarding running costs is true. For me the big one is hangarage at about 1200 per year.
I am cost-conscious and never really got my head round spending two or three pounds a minute on renting a Cessna or Piper. My current flying may not be an order of magnitude cheaper on an hourly basis (though I think it could be if I formed a group), but psychologically the cost of flying an additional hour being so low is that it makes it much more enjoyable to actually fly one.