I posted a couple of months ago about generic; been there since Sep 10 and still no issues. I use the Firetip and its as fast as any I've used, pretty basic but great for me - I'm doing about 100/day ES and now 6E. My buddy opened there with $2k and got the same rate ($1.18 rt); guess I thought I should have had a better rate then him with my account, but they don't negotiate, everyone gets the same rate no matter what. I was a little annoyed, but it's fine.
Like CashKing said, just give Matt a buzz. He is not a phone "hustler" and he will help you out while walking you through every platform and its costs, well...at least he did that with me.
How about something more direct about a problem you have with Advantage? I've been with them for awhile and things have been great. I've only had to call once or twice, and it wasn't because of something on their end, yet they answered the phone right away and knew what to do to help me out. On the other hand before them I had used a few brokers and had problems of most every kind. The problems encountered with each, were enough for me to look elsewhere, and I'm happy I found Advantage. One of my worries for Advantage was when they started making the move to bring in more retail accounts. I was afraid I'd start to encounter the problems of the past with platform issues and servers being over burdened, and customer service collapsing. They have handled expansion well and I have not experienced any issues.
http://www.openecry.com I would toss OEC's name into the mix - live accounts get free charting and data which can be a substantial savings. Worth a look and can get a demo for free to test out.
Brownsfan, I will say OpenEry was one of the places I had issues with. At one point they credited my account with an extra $50,000. The people you called were next to useless. At the same time the backoffice people were very good at figuring out what was wrong, but I don't want to have to make 2 calls for screw ups like that. At the same time that was 5-7 years ago, and they may have changed clearing firms and problems. I also had problems with their patform crashing, but again maybe that has changed. I had to call quite a few times back then in a position when the platform crashed, and there never was an excuse for it.
Is it reasonable to even worry about 5-7 year ago problems when commenting on a firm? It is quite some time ago.