I had a thought, the difficulty setting in the password.
If you wrote a short scale for where to set it to, if you say server load drops with the preset (or am 100% wrong?)
Then maybe make some guide lines.
Eg. Below 500mh/s = d=xx
500 to 1500mh/s = d=xxx
Am i making sense?
I know myself, and many others have no idea what difficulty to set, and just go for the auto. (Am running 512 per your request)
Difficulty is now hard coded at 512 (so it doesn;t matter what you set in your miner). As it has been explained many times, difficulty by itself will not change your earnings in the long term. You will get less shares but each will be worth more so it's virtually the same. It only matters for short term because luck/variance play their part and it might seem inconsistent. Just let it settle and choose a longer time frame (24h+) to see that the results are the same.
the 512 diff will probably be forced forever (may I suggest 1024?

) so it doesn;t matter anymore but here are some old guidelines:
<250KH: 16
250+: 32
500+: 64
1000+: 128
2000+: 256
3000+: 384
4000+: 512