just a few trades in any direction in these markets will qualify just about anyone for that category.....
I've been using IB for a few years. The universal account rocks - I put a high value in trading forex, futures, equities, and options in one place (I mostly do quant trading and statistical arbitrage). API is not the cleanest but gets the job done. Costs are not the lowest, but very close. I am comfortable with the safety of my money with them. I rarely interact with customer service - and when I do it is through their automated forms - so I won't voice an opinion on their friendliness. Their one-way electronic communications (short-buy notices, etc) have a bit of a 'you will be assimilated' voice to them -- but doesn't bother me as long as things keep working. The one area I would hope for an improvement is TWS stability in new releases. It seems to take a few patch builds to get it right. I can see why some people may not like IB (margins, customer service, java-hating, etc) -- but I think the accusations about their stability are baseless.
Read the news stories on MF. They have very poor risk management practices and questionable finances.
Just to follow up on this, the $ arrived promptly at my wire target bank. Not a hitch. Only one problem. It was probably safer at IB than the bank it landed at.