Pros & cons of buying gold directly vs. investing in a gold ETF like GLD, IAU, SGOL?

Owning physical gold (assuming coins):

• somewhat heavy
• risk of theft
• have to take it to a dealer to buy or sell
  • there may be some spread over the market value of the gold, to cover the dealer's expenses
• you can only really buy or sell in increments of "one coin"
• small but nonzero risk you're being defrauded by the dealer
• the actual ownership is free (unless you need to pay for anti-theft insurance, a safe, etc)

Owning gold through a fund:

• more liquid and convenient (it's probably easy to buy and sell from a brokerage than to walk yourself down to a dealer)
  • ownership may qualify you for brokerage minimums of some sort or another
  • you're pretty much getting the exact same price for gold as all the hedge funds
• you can only really buy and sell in increments of "one share"
• the actual ownership is not free (fund expenses)
• small but nonzero risk you're being defrauded by the fund sponsor
• in times of extreme political chaos (revolutions, etc) there's an elevated risk you won't actually be able to get a hold of it afterward
  • there's some international element to this depending on where the gold is actually held, so if it's being held in (say) London and you're in a politically-unstable third-world country or something it might be a better hedge against asset seizures than the physical thing