i just bought this:
http://www.kabusa.com/ev1.htm

the kab ev-1 record cleaner. a buck fifty ($150 or so). hooks up to your own personal vacuum and requires manual turning of the record, which are the only differences between this and those five hundred and up models. cleaned a bunch of crackly vinyl, 90% of which sounded near mint after giving it a go. doesn't fix scratches, but any dust-related issues are more or less resolved. best investment i ever made... already paid for itself.