OK, as I mentioned above, I was one of those that ordered on 10/20 and had a ship date of yesterday.  To my surprise, late last night status changed to "shipped" on 11/17, which was even a day earlier.  Thought it was odd that my credit card was never charged and I never received an email about the shipping.  Now this morning it switched back to processing with a ship date of 12/26.  Complete BS.  I'm cancelling.  The S8 will be out before I get this thing.  I believe that Verizon is stopping shipments because of the connectivity issues people are having.  Maybe they will ship after there is a software fix, or they're waiting on a new batch to be manufactured.