The answer to the original post is not so straight forward. It all depends on numerous factors, such as risk amount, knowledge, etc.
If you are only looking to open an account with anything less than 5k, your choices are pretty much (see below) limited to the various market makers (FXCM, forex.com. Oanda - you can do a Google search to find more) that allow you to open accounts with that level of funds or less and trade less than standard lot amounts (100k). Problems with MM's are well documented, especially if you are trying to trade the news. Most people don't get it and bitch about it.
If you want to seriously trade forex, you need to look for a broker that is an ECN, one that provides straight-thru-processing (stp) with the interbank market, in other words, they don't manipulate the price, but charge you a commission per side/per trade.
Most ECN's require a larger amount to open an account, usually 50k, because trading with the interbank market usually involves trades valued in the millions, not 100k. However, there are a few that require less. With IB, you can open an account with as little as 5k, and trade as little as 25k nominal value, with their 50:1 leverage, that equates to margin requirement of only $500, so actually not a bad level to start with. HotspotFx is another ECN that only requires 7500, and MB Trading has a plan that you can open with just 400. (Don't know if this account by MB is an ECN or marketmakers, but I know the regular with the pro platform is an ECN)
Some people will choose a broker based on the trading platform. As you mentioned, IB's platform is not for the faint of heart, to say the least. They were late getting to the retail fx market and it shows in their front end. Most like to trade with Metatrader, but that only works with MM's, contrary to what some may claim. Metatrader has a very good charting feature built into the platform, and if you frequent many fx boards, you will notice that most charts posted come from Metatrader. On the ECN side, there is Currenex, MB' pro platform with "Level II" depth. There's hotspotfx, and there's IB. (A few more I may not be familiar with)
I have personally tried many (not all) of the popular fx brokers over the past 3 years and have come to my own conclusions concerning ECN vs MM. Some people prefer the trade with fixed spreads, some like the interbank. It depends on your level of comfort.
As to security, you can always go to the NFA website and research your intended broker for violations, registration, etc. If they are not there, then you really have no recourse (I say this as a US resident - Europe and Canada have their own regulatory agencies) and you could check the financial health of a company by looking here for most recent financial disclosures:
http://www.cftc.gov/tm/tmfcm.htm
Hope this helped.
Jim
