Hey guys, thanks for the info, especially the bit about the day-trading. I think I can avoid issues, as long as I avoid day-trading. The automated method is about prediction, rather than reaction, so maybe I will just trade to the best of my ability for the following day, rather than same-day. I'll just limit the frequency of my trades until I have a decent proof-of-concept (which I should do anyway). Will this let me avoid the issues you mentioned?
I'd love to run the API against the IB demo account. It wouldn't be ideal, but as long as it has frequent changes in the data (that aren't completely random) it might still work as intended. Otherwise, I'll just bite the bullet and fund the account, so I can use the API and paper trade.
Again, thanks so much for taking the time to write this out; it helps a lot.