October would've been a BME if Istock would not have gone down significantly compared to last year's October.
Shutterstock really surprised me with the first BME of this year.  I may be wrong, but I have the impression they started pushing new files a bit more, and the results are positive.  Istock is doing the opposite (almost hiding new files!) and I'm not happy with the results.
Remember the Istock big "redeemed credits" announcement, where they said that most contributors sell 50% of their sales in the last 3 months of the year  NOT TRUE.  (at least not in my case, it's closer to 30%).

SS 30,5%,  14,5% up (BME)
FOT 22%, 10% up
ISP 18,5%, -9% down
DST 15%, 40% up (2 ext. lic.) BME
12Rrf  4,5%, 60% up, BME
BST 2,8%, 43% up
CAN 1,5%, BME (started 2010)
GLO 0,1% (started 2010)
CUT, 0% no sales
ROD 4,1%, 5% down

Rodeo did not do well, but that's not surprising at all!  They have not even added my 500-image submission of last July to the collection, because they're "too busy reorganizing the site".  They've also been too busy to pay anybody since August.  Must be a HUGE site reorganization if they're even too busy to add any files!

Are you trying to freeze high speed motion, or are just seeing the shutters at 1/200s ? 
I'm using Elinchrom strobes too, combined with a 5DII, and I trigger them wireless.  The transceivers have a sync speed that is slower than the sync speed of the 5DII, which causes shutter shadows on the bottom of the images if I go faster than 1/125s.  So before you start spending money, just try lowering your shutterspeed to 1/125 or 1/100.

 
I just became a diamond contributor at Istock (a few minutes ago).
I knew this would happen somewhere in Autumn, and I was looking forward to this milestone for months.
Now why am I not celebrating

I voted yes, but to get my membership, it will have to include Istockphoto uploading.  2-4 cents would be fine.

Had to look for the word "sustainability" in a dictionary first - next time I shoot a globe it'll be one of my keywords 

One of these might be usable, though I don't think you'll like my stack of books, cause they're antique.  The frog pics might be ok.

http://www.fotolia.com/id/16551406
http://www.fotolia.com/id/20999560
http://www.fotolia.com/id/15356457
http://www.fotolia.com/id/23095182
http://www.fotolia.com/id/7207711
http://www.fotolia.com/id/17022063
(of this last one I have 3 more)

Can we see the end result of your project? 

The day of the announcement and 2 following days sales were extremely slow at Istock, but pretty good elsewhere, especially Fotolia.  I guess Istock buyers were too busy reading the forum posts ...  Now Istock sales seem to be back to normal. 
And yes, I also notice that PPD sales at Shutterstock are steadily increasing.

I have never been interested in going exclusive, never even clicked on the Istock link that goes to the exclusivity simulation.  

In case it has not been mentioned yet in any other forum post about the Istock-disaster :  Dreamstime almost immediately reacted with this announcement :

"In this economic turmoil it's sad that the end consumer is usually the one taking the biggest hit especially when talking about sacrifices. When most countries and world economies expect positive growth, it's not the best time for a race to the bottom. We at Dreamstime are looking at today's competitive landscape and are worried about contributors being sacrificed for the sake of accelerated growth. Microstock is already a powerful industry and it is the acknowledged mainstream of stock photography these days. It has already had a fantastic growth.

We're announcing a new promotion via our referral program that is directed to these competitive changes. Although it's a small gesture, butterfly's wings are sometimes everything required.

We've been always fans of our contributor base and beyond. Agencies' strategies and policies need to be well prepared in the best interest of all parties. The entropy will continue to increase in any universe (physics, mathematics and beyond). Mundane everyday updates or long term strategies need to keep this in mind in order to avoid chaos.

Sorry for the long message, here are the details:

1. Every exclusive-elsewhere member that starts to upload to Dreamstime will receive the upload bonus that we award to our exclusive photographers:
$0.20/approved image. This goes into effect today and ends November 15. All you need to do is email us the link that shows you are an exclusive contributor elsewhere and your account with us. On November 15 we will count your uploads and will award the bonus for all accepted files.

2. Same offer applies to exclusive-elsewhere members that have disabled images on Dreamstime. They will receive the upload bonus for all newly uploaded files (not for enabling the disabled files though). Naturally, these re-enabled files will gain their previous search placement and price level, so they will enjoy much better sales and royalties than from new uploads.

3. We will award the 10% share of the bonus+future earnings to all members referring such users (you just need to include your referral's username in your email or use it at registration time). Additionally, existing members who will motivate exclusive-elsewhere contributors to re-open their Dreamstime account (should they already have one), will be awarded as their referral users. An email to support is all that is needed. We've been bombarded with emails about disabled files. If they appear in your Disabled files section, you can enable them. If not, it means they were deleted and you need to re-upload.

These may seem as small things but that's what the butterfly effect is about. Generating big changes from small ones. Referring 10 users will bring the same revenue as it would from your own Dreamstime portfolio. We expect a hig number of submissions and the best 4 months of the year. We've seen a significant increase of activity for our referral program in the last two days so you better start sending your links to your friends.
Depending on the impact, we reserve the right to end this promotion sooner.

So who-ever steps over from Istock exclusivity to Dreamstime, don't forget to use the referral link of one of the Microstockgroup members, even if you're already registered and you have disabled files.  

              %   Aug'09
SS   41%   12%
IS   25%   -2%
DST   15%   10%
FT   31%   41%
GLO   0%   -
BGS   4%   -24%
123rf   4%   15%
CAN   1%   -
CC   0%   -
ALMY   1%   -25%

That's earnings.  If I look at the number of downloads, the picture is much less positive.  It's obvious that in my case, the EL's saved the month.

No that's not so surprising as it seems :  last year sales went down to zero in the summertime, and they explained that in Finland July/August everybody goes on holidays and business life almost stops completely.

Same here!  Even SS and FT subscriptions pay more per sale!

I had no idea, so I did a test and to my surprise, Dreamstime won with "only" 21% mistakes.  Istock came in second.
(with "mistake" I mean : images that do not show the subject searched for).

Lisa, I don't know what I did differently, but when I search your portfolio on FAMILY, I get 607 hits, and BUSINESS gives 837 hits. 
I just did it by typing FAMILY in "search Lisafx portfolio", nothing else.  In advanced settings, nothing is ticked, so my default settings don't filter anything.