Going forward...if you were to switch brokers again...would you demo or simulate trade for a few days or weeks to familiarize you're self to the trading platform prior to going real money trading ?
I would have to test that my system execution code works with the new broker API for a day or two.
But i consider this software/code testing, i dont consider this paper trading a strategy, which i think is a waste of time.
I do this currently when i make a major code change to my algo. You always have to test code changes incase you have broken something. Typically i use the live IB platform for testing new code as well. I just set the transmit=false flag so the API order pops up in TWS but doesnt go to the exchange.