1998, bad thinking on your part. The dilution matters; if there's no other way, well, okay, but as a last resort at this time, we are far too weak to handle it, which you implicitly admit with what you are saying might be a raise at a dime! I agree, it will matter less if this is a homerun, but that's far, far from decided yet. If we turn out to be a singles hitter, then dilution will really do us in.
And if the counter argument is that without the raise we won't know if we could have a homerun, then I would say, geez, isn't our tech to the point where we can get someone (or a few someones) interested for the $12 million you mentioned in your post?