A few comments since I just woke up and am somewhat disorienteted.
Not Using High Level Runes: While I think its true not alot of high level runes have been used to date, alot of people are picking up on it. I imagine the reason why is because alot of the grids still have openings bellow LumLum and its fair to say that some people like to work in a logical progressive manner (moving from ElEl upwards). The Highest Rune i've ever had was Gul at Hell Forge, I traded that for Ist and Um and used both for Rune Words to improve my Gear (Ist and Um were infact the last two nessesary Rune Words i'd ever need, although Silence in a Hydra Bow/Cursader Bow is a catching MF Bow but requires both Ist and Vex so I have lost interest in it.)
I got Pul at Nightmare Hell Forge, it was used in testing, I've had three Lem's Drop so far and i've used two of them in testing (Delirium got my other Lem), i've had three Fal's all three used in testing, my only Ko was traded to me and I need it for Melody. As for Lum i've recently had three through drops or trades and used them too. Its not always nessesary that people arn't using high level runes because they want to keep them but because they've used them for equipment (in my case) or they've never seen a rune above Lum (such is the case of a friend of mine).
Lottery Reward: I think its a good idea for more incentive, I think perhaps using items we find on Hell Cows (for each respective realm) to fuel the jack pot untill someone finds a Rune Word is good also. Since doing Hell Cows i've had quite a number of tasty items drop (Talrasha's Orb, Orphan's Helm, Duirial's Shell, Blackoak Luna, and Natalya's Armour just to name a few).
Getting Higher Level Runes: Another idea (one i've been using for a while now, but since someone mentioned it) is to take highly tradable items from Cow Games (items people don't want and often just leave in town) and trade them for Runes to be used in testing. While I personally believe that 90% of all runes traded are Dupes that just continue to fester and clog up the real market concidering that the items are unwanted by any of the team, and the Runes will be burned for testing (in low level items such as caps no less) the only requirment for the Runes to fulfil is to survive to the socketing stage without disappearing.
Trading for Mass Ammounts of Low Level Runes might be another idea, currently on Armour Lum has just started being tested in, which is why when I had three Lum's I didn't upgrade them to a Ko. Testing three combinations in this case is more of a success then testing a higher one (since we have no real clue whats going on). While it is more likely that rune words will contain higher runes you can't eliminate the possibility of a low level Runeword existing.
My Hell Forge: I was pleased with Normal (but can't remember what I got) I got Pul in Nightmare and Gul on Hell.

I thought it was brilliant.
Wathombe: No problem, i'm on holidays now so I can easily log in during those times.