BTC Guild started setting up a new server this morning running modified block rules. Currently trying out a 500,000 byte maxblocksize. The problem is with larger blocks, you increase the chance of orphans since it will take at least twice as long to propagate, if not more. I've modified the fee settings to prefer fee based transactions when increasing the block size past 50 KB, so hopefully the increase in fees per block offset the orphan rate increase.
What do you mean you have modified the fee settings? Were you not doing what the Bitcoin client has always been doing? In other words: 27kB for storing high-priority transactions (regardless of the fee), and the remainder of the block always preferring fee-based transactions.
And I don't care for satoshi dice. Let them move to litecoin or ban them from spamming the network and my harddrives.
Well. I am partaged on what to think about satoshidice. On one hand they pollute the block chain, but on the other hand they do help stress-test bitcoin's technical limits in the real world relatively early in its history.