Agreed, great summary Jeff.
I had pretty much forgotten about what Midnight Madness was like - especially since the last major one was 10+ years ago.
Back in 2005, I did the midnight madness at Toys R Us, then after getting "done" there, I immediately went across the street to sit outside of the Target. Right before they opened, my wife joined me so I'd have a 2nd person to help me get an opener of Lava Reflection Vader, and then once "done" there, I went over to WalMart so I could get the Modern Early Bird Kit.
The funny thing is that SO MUCH of this stuff was produced, none of it ended up being hard to get in the days that followed. Toys R Us ran out of Dagger Squad B-Wings but got PLENTY in eventually, in fact I even scored a 2nd opener eventually on deep clearance, Target eventually had pegs of Lava Reflection Vader, and WalMart had stacks and stacks of that Early Bird Kit.
So in addition to the "where should I go" and "what can I expect" questions, the "how much has been produced" question is also important.
From what I have seen NOTHING has been produced in any great quantity anymore, production runs are a fraction of what they were 10 years ago and we are definitely back to a post-EP1 "buy it when you see it or else you may never see it again" environment with many cases the situation being that you don't see certain products EVER.
So IMHO, what we saw (or didn't see) at SDCC should be an indicator of just that - buy what you see, if you see it, cause the way things were back in 2005 is LONG gone.
My hope is that we'll get a better idea of what exclusives are going to be where closer to Force Friday and then beyond that all other purchases can be handled via online retailers. I might still do the Midnight Madness, but not if all it'll get me is a wave of 12 5POA figures, that will be easier to buy by the case.