Players generally put far too much importance on starting stack
It is the structure that is key
3,000 chips is fine if the structure is graduated enough to allow play at all times
I am not saying a move to 15,000 won"t happen, merely pointing out that structure is key and I am not aware that for any concerted period of any APAT national our structure and 10,000 chips leads to a crapshoot.
When I played in the $1,000 event at the WSOP a couple of years ago, we got only 3,000 in chips, but the blinds went 25/25, 25/50, and so on, rising every hour. LOTS of play.
It"s all about the structure.
10k is fine for the APAT events. I turned up over an hour late at Brighton and was gutted to find I had lost, err, 300 chips out of my 10k. There"s plenty of play with the 10k and the current structure.