You are clearly on a good track zHO. Pools are exceptionally good at determining what share difficulty you should be receiving. Some pools take longer than others to figure this out. I like to be able to make that decision myself.
My problem was that without suggested difficulty, I would be sent 1K shares for 20-40 minutes until the pool recognized how small I am. (bad things can happen in 20- 40 minutes of not returning a share, zadig, usb, libusb and even more unfamiliar stuff).
Now I can ask it to start at an appropriate difficulty, and I will be returning shares in just moments.