I´m somewhat careful with the small Exchanges, but I have a friend who does trading in the Exchange called Mercatox and Tradesatoshi, according to him they are very reliable and always manages to make large profits, he affirms that he can study the movement of the whales and follow them, that there It is where you earn the most when you determine it, in a way you are right, if we follow the whales in their movements we will have gains, the bad thing is to go against whales, although in my concept I still prefer the most reliable Exchanges such as Binance, Bitfinex, Kraken , among others...
Small exchanges do really have that kind of negative impression in most people but using them isnt really a bad idea after all yet not all of them arent that capable nor trustable.
Just use and take it on your own risk while using them and same as yours im not really that fan of considering on using smaller ones yet if i can able to use the reputable and most popular then
leaning back to smaller ones isnt possible.