Is it possible to send a tx that wouldn't normally relay to a node, but still get it accepted into the nodes memory pool? I thought the code did not allow that, but maybe I'm wrong.
Well if the tx was accepted by the pool in the first place it would have to be running some custom software. I assume it would try and relay it normally but it would only be accepted by peers that were following the same relaxed rules as itself. I have played with nonstandard transactions in the past sending them through Eligius to get mined and it does seem that though they are accepted and eventually end up in a block that I do not see them get propagated very far elsewhere on the network before being mined. I assume that it would work fairly similarly for transactions with fees below minimum.