American International Group, Inc. (AIG)

[Entangled Proton]

1st the uptick rule makes things worse for the the trader. The hedgie simply upticks the stock themselves with blocks of 100 shares then shorts. The trader see's the upticks and buys then gets clobbered.
2nd the uptick rule has been in place for years but since electronic trading the exchanges haven't been able to enforce the rule. Unless they have made drastic changes in their software it still can't be enforced.

The uptick rule is presently enforced by the brokers and hedgies act as their own brokers. I traded b4 electronic trading and I can assure you if they find a way of enforcing it at the exchange level it won't help the trader 1 bit. It may slow dilution when used with the % of volume rule, but since % of volume doesn't apply to shorts, it will have no effect on shorts.