About the last line, if you a a subscriber the games Lahno - Jobava Dubai 2004 and Jessel-Ward British Champs 2005
may be of interest. I havent analysed the line before but it appears that black gets good play. Critical line is

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. O-O-O d5 10. Kb1 Nxd4  11. e5 
Nf5 12. exf6  exf6 13. Bc5 d4 14. Bxf8 Qxf8 15. Nb5 Be6 (15... Ne3 16. Re1 f5 17. Nxd4 f4 {also seems to give black good compensation}) Qb4 17. a3 Qc5

In the line swiss_dragon gave after 17.Bb5 a6 18.Ba4 b5 19.Bb3 Bxb3 20.axb3 a5 21.Qe2 a4 22.Ka2 I do not see how white can make progress after 22...b4 (threat a3) 23.bxa4 Rxa4+ 24.Kb3 Rfa8 as white's rook will be tied down to the b-pawn after e.g 25.Rd1 Ra2 26.Rb1 Ra4. However this doesnt give any winning chances to black either   . Any improvements on this?

Black has two responces either Golubevs queen sacrifice or Rb8.
I have played both with sucess. I think that Martin underestimates both answers.
If black playes the Queen sac then white has no real attack to speak of. I tried this line as black against Fritz 10 once and got a draw. But if you prefere to play more solid then play Rb8. Blacks statistics are not bad (about 50% in Rogozenkos disc) with either move. For example the Queen sac has even been played in correnspondance chess and black has won in for example Wang - Esses 1997. 

The real reason why the Dragon is a rare is actually this line 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.
Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 O-O 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. O-O-O d5 10. exd5 Nxd5 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Bd4 *