Things have changed a bit since those days, in fact it used to be 500k not that long ago! Banks will take anything they can get nowadays, it's all business. Look at the number of banks getting into retail, RBS, Deutsche, Barclays......they saw the potential and the profit they were missing out on!
Well hell something's bound to, it may as well be karma! Those micros are crap anyway, too expensive from what I've read, 8 ticks commission sheeesh. I'm actually thinking of ditching this whole forex scene and getting into options, a few dozen contracts every couple of months it's like money for old rope
There's another option now for smaller trades - the e-micro futures on the CME. Perhaps worth a look. http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/fx/forex-e-micros.html
The forex exchange that MB Trading uses is 3D Forex. If you go to 3D Forex's web site, you will notice something quite interesting... this exchange is located at the SAME address as MB Trading! So I question if MB Trading really is a true ECN.