Just wondering, can we not have the best of both worlds by solo-mining AND submiting to a pool at the same time?
I am thinking along the lines of having a mining proxy opening connections (chats) and first submiting to the solo-minig chat then to the pool such that if you "discover" a block, you win it with the intial submission and though you go ahead and submit the same share to the pool, it is of no effect.

Would this require a special implementation of the pool and what does it take to mine directly rather than through a solo mining pool such as this one?