i researched this myself not too long ago...
(i ended up selling a box of old stuff for like $20)
yes, there is some precious metal in electronic eq., but it's not enough to justify the means of extracting it yourself, especially if it's just a few components; and because they contain mercury as well.
what recyclers do is send boatloads to china where people, including children, work on taking it apart for the reusable materials, poisoning their land and giving them cancer.
waste landfills will not likely sort out the electronic stuff from the rest of the junk when they dump it in the oceans.
crt monitors contain about 8lbs of lead and can be damaging to the environment either way.
also, you're right about not donating it. i read on some other forum/site that non-profits would generally not appreciate the 'old' junk donated to them. think about it, if they really need to do some serious work, they're not going to want the extra trouble of fixing the old computers for mediocre performance.
this is a tough one dude, let us know what you end up doing, but don't feel pressured or guilted into doing it one way or another. we've dug ourselves one nasty hole with this electronic stuff