gonna throw my 2c in here. I am friends with the guy who is over all the store managers for the corporate stores in my area. I ran into him at the pharmacy tonight. I've been bugging him about this phone for MONTHS now, and he always told me he'd tell me when he knew something. Anyway, he told me he was going to call me tomorrow to let me know that Thursday will be the day I can take my unicorn phone home. (that's what we've always called it.) He said that it's going to be "unofficially soft-launched" on Thursday, and that there would probably be hardly any signage up for it. He said it was going to be a very quiet launch, and that I WILL be able to walk in Thursday the 8th and get one. This guy has never steered me wrong...Here's hoping.
EDIT: This guy used to be a store manager and was promoted about a year ago. He now wears a suit and works in a high-rise with the other local VZW big-wigs. He's legit. He also has given me accurate dates for every single device I've been interested in for the last year. He's reliable, so unless he has some bad info, I expect to pick mine up Thursday.