Hopefully in ~9 hours I'll see something.

The only thing out of the ordinary I am doing is using a stratum proxy + custom user flag to override the share submits:

   stratum_proxy.exe -o middlecoin.com -p 3333 -cu 1NBCeD3nRgTL9sKiwfSmZkwCuFND6TG4Jo -cp x

Output from the proxy shows the shares getting accepted.

Used this method on many other pools and got credit there.

Thank you for your help.