Also: have a US bank and stick with it. If you leave the US, don't tell your bank! (I've had the same account since the 80's - it's gone through four banks now - and that might also be one factor in my looking stable.)
One of my agencies is a lady who did a round-the-world trip over two years, getting back a year ago. PayPal locked her payments - every time - while she was in Africa.
I signed up when it was only available in the US now it's avialable in Scotland I tried to register for the UK version. You can't register for the UK cos you have a US account, you can't use the US account with a UK credit card. I asked them to delete the US account and it's now stuck in some sort of Limbo where I can't open a UK account cos I have the US one, and I can't log into the US one because it's been deleted. Once a year I spend a few days emailing them to try and sort it out.
In short, I can't wait to get the "delete merchant bank/switch all processing to PayPal" task to the top of my to do list.
PayPal has never required us to leave a reserve amount in our account. I believe that is due to our low complaint/chargeback rate.