I think that IB should fess up to their mistakes and "eat" whatever losses they have caused. I had a similar experience with cybercorp about a year ago, and they without any arguments or hesitation accepted their mistake and refunded me the loss caused by their system failure. [in my case CyberTrader refused to exit a trade. I didn't get out until I got someone at Cyber on the phone and they manually closed out the position]
I was short before we dropped to the LOD. I had an stop order in that would have given me a small profit. The rep I spoke with seemed to think that since the order was at the CME then i was fine. After IB was restored i decided to close the trade because it was still open in my account window at a loss. By what IB has said it seems that i should have now been long because the stop would have be honored. As of this morning i was not. I guess the stop wasn't honored even though it was entered before the problem arose. Luckily I offset the trade with a friends account so I'm basically flat.
the real failure is there : it is possible that any problem occure for any reason, with IB or Exchanges or others, nothing is perfect . BUT the real thing is that the broker helpdesk MUST answser immediatly and exit the customer's position AT ONCE when needed. that is the most important.