I don't understand. If Adwords is expensive (and you can set your price for everything), how is anything else going to be different?
Hey e-controler, give TextAdMarket a try. It is a CPD/CPC hybrid network. Meaning, you can pay for clicks, or you can just buy out an advertisers banner for a set number of days. Right now, our clicks are $0.06 on our CPC network. Check it out: http://www.TextAdMarket.com (signup, then click "Buy CPC")