I know what you're saying, but for a regular retail trader with a smallish account, there's nobody that even comes close to IB's commissions. Prior to IB, spreads and commissions must have eaten most small traders alive. I've got a few complaints with IB, but overall I LOVE them. They have eliminated 95% of the barriers to entry for a small, part time guy like myself.
Hi, sometime IB has not some ETF for shorting. There is possible to choose alternate ETF. Like I used it for TTH vs IYZ. But sometime there is not problem on IB side, because such ETF can be on list of not shortable shares because of large shorts positions taken (Uniform Practices Code rule 11830 ). Also this is not so big problem, will try next time. Also for uptick - I think IB stuff do not know what they saying. ETF are shortable without uptick rule and I have NO ONE problem to sell short into bid (downtick) for every ETF I shorted since today via IB TWS.
I believe that this was just an instance of where the customer service staff was (and still is?) ignorant on the uptick rule and where the software has shared in that ignorance. I had to send TWS screen shots along with webpage links to the ETF prospectus, the AMEX ETF summary page and NYSE rules on ETF's before I was taken seriously by the customer service staff. This took several hours to collect (mostly NYSE rules) and to compose an 8th grade reading level email referencing these links.