Thanks!
I've perhaps given the impression I know what I'm doing. I'll be more sure of myself once I've bloomed some of the others, if indeed I do. There's hopefully no harm in sharing what I've done so far though:
These are (please don't laugh) in a windowsill and in the aforementioned diatomite and translucent pots...the catch is that my windowsills are on the 15th floor of an older apartment building with plain glass and no obstructions whatsoever. (That and the location are the only reasons we have said apartment.) Having the screen in the window does provide some scrim for them, but they get direct sunlight from dawn till about 1pm. They get their MSU "dew" from the bottom up generally twice a week in the very early morning--the new growths on some seem fairly prone to rot (and pests), so watering at that time of day makes sense. All of the other standard culture rules apply too of course. My other "duh" comment is don't bother watering much till they have roots, or you'll just rot the efforts the plant is making--depending on who you get them from, it may be understood that you're getting recent imports with a couple of short roots at most. The non-established ones are of course less expensive, but your success rate will probably be lower too. I've done both and would be tempted to leave the "dirty work" (which is fun when things are going well) to someone with perfect conditions if money were no object. Getting an established plant that has bloomed is always a huge boost.
Ps. NYEric: too xerophytic=your roof! Which one did you try? There's a lot of variation in the leaves from species to species and they're not all built for the same level of exposure. You can kind of tell which is which by looking at how sharply vertical, fleshy and tall the leaves are.
