To the contrary, I think they cater to traders with high equity and who can solve problems on their own. They are not a place for newbies with small accounts
You newcomers don't know how lucky you have it. Compared to before, TWS is very stable. I have been with IB for many years and remember when TWS would be upgaded practically every 2 weeks, sometimes twice a week. I remember dumb problems like it not letting me upgrade because it thought I had the latest version when I had didnt. OK, thinking about this is pissing me off. Seriously I don't even know how I put up with them for so long.
I've been trading online since the first dialup modem came off the assembly line. And while nobody is perfect, and never will be, IB's speed of execution, variety of order types, variety of account types, and commission schedule is, IMO, beyond anything else available. I don't trade futures so I can't speak to those issues with IB. But regarding equities, any trader who thinks he will be better with another retail broker is going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.
I agree, and that is why I think the best course of action is to stay with IB, and make constructive criticisms to help them improve. I think that the most important single thing we all can do is to vote for suggestion #2185 in the IB New Features Poll. This suggestion is that IB reduce the pace of adding new features, so that it can shift resources toward making the old features function reliably and correctly. This would also reduce the amount of bug reports and other problems currently flooding the CS reps, so that they could clear their backlog and provide improved bug-fixing, troubleshooting, and other support. See http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=90282&perpage=6&pagenumber=1