OK, so correct me if I'm wrong, but why is a slower relay considered better?
If I understand the limitations you've added correctly, all you have done is speed up your internal UDP relay, but replaced the external connections to it with a slower relay and added excessive burden on the bitcoind.
The current (old) relay means there's a program (normally) local to the bitcoind that's hit with transactions at whatever rate is happening with the relay, then when a block is found, the traffic from your service is minimal, usually just a small compressed block, and then the local relay pushes a whole block to the local bitcoind that happens to (normally) be 0ms away, so no network issue at all.
With this new 'connect a bitcoind' directly to your network, all traffic from your network comes and goes directly to the main bitcoind.
How is the block compression compared to the current (old) relay?
Do you send transactions from your new relay to the bitcoind? Coz that will also be an unwanted thing to happen.
Basically it sounds like the new relay is really a transaction improvement relay, not a block relay improvement, so an improvement for payment sources, but a slower block relay for pools.
Your internal network may be faster, but the external network seems slower by design.
Edit: here's the last 50 old relay block sizes in transferred bytes (that last number). What's the new one for these?
[2016-11-16 02:48:11.106+00] ..00092682eadc186df.. recv'd, size 480071 with 7759 bytes
[2016-11-16 02:48:43.987+00] ..00090e83c28f2e244.. recv'd, size 40890 with 372 bytes
[2016-11-16 02:58:44.541+00] ..001df2eba7161c6f3.. recv'd, size 815374 with 6467 bytes
[2016-11-16 03:17:48.229+00] ..00194859b7edddd08.. recv'd, size 749215 with 4347 bytes
[2016-11-16 03:21:53.697+00] ..000b8a18e37427efc.. recv'd, size 995350 with 107909 bytes
[2016-11-16 03:24:56.709+00] ..001f852409054b6b9.. recv'd, size 379872 with 55638 bytes
[2016-11-16 03:45:50.157+00] ..00390e6e74393934d.. recv'd, size 998890 with 43410 bytes
[2016-11-16 03:54:36.501+00] ..000177238c9682e4f.. recv'd, size 998190 with 4671 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:12:17.972+00] ..0044f0b258077f23c.. recv'd, size 998142 with 5109 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:18:16.561+00] ..00048ef2fddab806c.. recv'd, size 775518 with 3192 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:19:00.934+00] ..0033c9e6d5f71d09b.. recv'd, size 102301 with 54094 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:19:12.686+00] ..002f51db6db619e07.. recv'd, size 42063 with 414 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:19:30.174+00] ..002a16788c9ad4aef.. recv'd, size 55625 with 382 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:19:39.133+00] ..000dc7a6eed875d98.. recv'd, size 8488 with 6485 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:42:00.685+00] ..00335deb00d796f75.. recv'd, size 999967 with 5814 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:48:45.110+00] ..0030cc64619151b69.. recv'd, size 859533 with 3710 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:52:07.216+00] ..0020d7cec45f78a15.. recv'd, size 998197 with 709974 bytes
[2016-11-16 04:58:05.087+00] ..001994c1f03adbbe9.. recv'd, size 362497 with 2132 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:11:25.948+00] ..0036ef48e33c117c7.. recv'd, size 999164 with 82598 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:13:17.240+00] ..0038a1e01b6de37cf.. recv'd, size 145171 with 693 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:27:12.666+00] ..000761cf6e37b57af.. recv'd, size 998038 with 4244 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:27:30.403+00] ..00398a5b97f368fec.. recv'd, size 97689 with 632 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:36:41.080+00] ..003c56ee2ea460182.. recv'd, size 755314 with 3028 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:43:48.049+00] ..003ddbca9351653f9.. recv'd, size 592994 with 34850 bytes
[2016-11-16 05:51:45.980+00] ..000ed0e3df1e5d3f9.. recv'd, size 993582 with 358432 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:03:21.346+00] ..00354d61136d8659a.. recv'd, size 879448 with 9050 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:06:48.633+00] ..003738fe282036c86.. recv'd, size 341092 with 86181 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:13:56.436+00] ..00335e2307e39a9eb.. recv'd, size 543532 with 2902 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:35:00.886+00] ..003659797406d34c9.. recv'd, size 999045 with 91518 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:37:33.387+00] ..002fe93e6a654620e.. recv'd, size 562524 with 2522 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:39:35.114+00] ..00048cf85b8a28f1c.. recv'd, size 111666 with 826 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:42:45.695+00] ..0019e8ee8a754b8c3.. recv'd, size 997973 with 722715 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:47:39.188+00] ..002a3bb0e0abf4450.. recv'd, size 275764 with 1653 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:48:22.713+00] ..0013298e19f4ab876.. recv'd, size 120658 with 469 bytes
[2016-11-16 06:49:07.700+00] ..003fe9c7f91392e0f.. recv'd, size 135217 with 78859 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:11:23.336+00] ..001ece483a24a3504.. recv'd, size 997997 with 6018 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:12:14.726+00] ..00415a03fd0ad8d16.. recv'd, size 749156 with 80903 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:23:08.089+00] ..000a731efbfec2080.. recv'd, size 997997 with 2541 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:25:22.546+00] ..0012d0155e0a287c1.. recv'd, size 683120 with 36350 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:36:08.687+00] ..002073bf93047c1bd.. recv'd, size 684824 with 3809 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:46:41.966+00] ..001feaae195e3d206.. recv'd, size 849255 with 4149 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:47:09.905+00] ..003d2504008e560cc.. recv'd, size 997374 with 918590 bytes
[2016-11-16 07:47:41.005+00] ..00252cb551eb2ba3e.. recv'd, size 49173 with 329 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:13:43.015+00] ..0029b70d5b108efbb.. recv'd, size 997890 with 5902 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:17:14.009+00] ..001b4ec9166d9a8b6.. recv'd, size 998211 with 4539 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:22:23.174+00] ..001c33f82658413f9.. recv'd, size 807397 with 3143 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:26:39.030+00] ..000001c04a845d6d1.. recv'd, size 307998 with 1756 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:28:48.756+00] ..001caa93923bb5cec.. recv'd, size 201068 with 1220 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:28:50.152+00] ..0006c8dbd2026ce8a.. recv'd, size 191 with 127 bytes
[2016-11-16 08:56:17.868+00] ..003c616e0ac5df293.. recv'd, size 998106 with 5367 bytes