Yes, Podyx has been doing well lately

Why. You don't believe that a $1 fee (for a 225 byte tx) can get you into the first block? It was probably an a 2x overkill but I didn't want to take chances.
Indeed, getting in the next block is pretty easy if you pay enough. Leaving a high-fee-per-byte tx in the pool for another miner to gobble up makes no sense.