no, the payouts are were not going to the big miners
the payouts are were going to no one at all (incl. the pool), because almost all blocks we find are we've found were orphans
i'll have to check the backend, i guess it had something to do with the stuck backend i fixed a few hours ago - i didn't thought it had such an big impact
/edit: i'll test some things on the pool side, expect some hickups done