A friend who recently returned from a trip to Mumbai commented that everyone in India is walking around with mobile phones. Statistics seem to backup this statement.
I think that a mobile site is a must today. So many people are using their phones like you said, and a mobile site makes sense. That way everyone will always be able to access your site.
One thing I can share is using the mobile friendly framework like bootstrap and the foundation definitely helps. You can find out that many people are moving the mobile responsive things. I am not sure if there are things from the mobile responsive layout that often works. But you can try those layouts and see if that works out for you.
I wanted to say that none of the links work and than I realized that someone has revived a really old thread
Well, I bet that things have changed a lot since those articles have been posted and pretty much everyone who aims to make a website nowadays must know that having a mobile friendly version is one of the things he / she should definitely think of. I am not a big fan of mobile friendly websites though. Don't get me wrong, though. I prefer when a certain site that aims to make mobile friendly website creates an app instead. They are usually more reliable and offer more IMO.