What buy in level? I got my poker start on poker.com (now carbon) and played there for a few years. Decent traffic at the lower levels and good rakeback. Also in my opinion one of the best looking softwares available. Cereus network also has decent traffic and great rakeback but their scandals make me nervous and their software is kind of bland.

That's obviously a valid concern and I don't think anybody can honestly tell you otherwise.  I assume the most likely thing to change that concern would be players on Stars and FTP receiving their bankrolls.

You can choose on either Merge sites and Cake sites. I would also recommend William Hill.