Yeah, I'm just confused why raskul would imply otherwise. He used to be very much for this pool. I am familiar with the mechanism behind merged mining and know it won't affect luck. There are really only two things other than luck itself that would affect luck. First is a problem with the pool itself - coding, intentional or otherwise. Second is a selfish miner attack - one or more of the bigger miners would be withholding blocks.

On this pool, selfish mining makes no sense. Someone with multiple TH of power is unlikely to waste it on such a small pool. Withholding a block means they don't get paid either. That doesn't mean it isn't or hasn't happened. People do irrational things all the time. That leaves a problem with the pool itself. We've seen this pool solve blocks before, and even with low powered miners, so coding is unlikely the issue. An intentional issue with the pool operator collecting but not reporting or paying out on solved blocks was more of a concern before the "mmpool" account started posting and modifying some things on the pool. That the pool itself is interested in succeeding is a positive sign here. That leaves just a really bad string of luck as the cause.

Removing some of the features of the pool is not going to cause miners to move here. That just makes no sense.