You're absolutely right, Greg. Any work is copyrighted the moment it's written. And I thought about it, read tons of stuff both here and in the vastness of Google, and argued it with my hubs and a couple friends both in the writing world and out of it.
I decided to go with copyright for the one argument my hubs came up with that I couldn't come up with a decent come back for - "If it's good enough to have your name on it, out there for all the world to read, then it's good enough to have copyright. Take the time. Spend the money."
After thinking about it a bit more I decided he was right. If my stories are good enough to be out there, they warrant the time and cost of copyrighting them. And if I can't justify spending the time and cash, then they shouldn't be out there for downloading. Not until they're ready at any rate.