For swing trading purposes, I'd like to place stop orders but unlike daytrading, I don't need them filled quickly; I'd rather have them filled at a good price. A big market order, especially near the open if there's a gap would have terrible execution and for the limit orders it's hard to know what the right limit is. Instead, what I'd like is a "smart" stop order that, if the stop condition gets triggered, becomes a midpoint peg or a relative price or a 5-minute VWAP or something similar type of order. IBKR seems like the broker most likely to have it and I can simulate it by having a midpoint order "conditional" on the price being below the stop price but that's a pain to put in each time and is non-obvious. Is there a cost-of-execution aware stop order I'm missing.
Not sure what you mean being "non-obvious", but the closest you'll get to what you want is indeed a midprice order, conditionally triggered on price. Yes, it takes a minute to set up, but so what? And as always, if you're dealing with a wide spread in a fast moving market, there are no guarantees. A midprice order can float with price before being filled, and sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.
Sending through API is always an option, simple terminal based approach. Will take 5 seconds to enter depending on your typing speed.