Yes, this is what it's looking like but the 9k will probably drop a little further as I tailor the RC levels and find whatever is the lowest level I can safely hold the posting accounts at without worry that a sudden surge will cause problems.
Right now my bot is checking every 2 mins. On test net I had that as low as 1 minute but I think I'll probably push it up to 5 or 10 mins once a steady state is reached.
I really want to build a new tool for monitoring Podping. HAF should be able to do that but in reality HAF still seems to be overkill and I'm thinking I can do my own thing with a MongoDB which I'm much more comfortable with.