That's one of your problems right there.  Don't use the old main middlecoin.com as your primary.  It (and USWest which is currently identical) is on old code that's been less efficient than what's on the new beta servers. H2o has plans to update that one too and have Middlecoin.com be a front for all the regional servers that will give you the best location for your relative latency, but this hasn't been implemented yet, so for now if you want best returns, you should connect to the beta server closer to you.

Try setting your cgminer to the EU, USEast, or Asia beta servers with whichever server gives you the best sustained ping (lookout for spikes over a minute or so pinging) as the primary.