In the FWIW category, you might want to try the
Buddy System I came up with for the Postcards. Doing something like this and/or text messages via the phone seems like a great idea to me. I did this because I also missed out on most of the Postcards in Wacky history and was insanely frustrated last time. Last night is the first time I have been able to purchase them at release time (for PC7 I was able to purchase extra sets after-the-fact).
In fact, I may have the most annoying "missed out" story evah! For PC6, I was actually looking at the Limited Edition set on-line at the Topps Store, trying to understand the difference between it and the regular postcards. After hem-hawing around for several minutes (refreshing screens all the while) I decided to buy a single LE set, still not really understanding what they were or their limited nature. I was able to add them to my cart but when I went to pay for them it said THEY WERE SOLD OUT. I was THAT close!
After that I missed out on the 2010 Halloween set because I was gone for a few days (#@$!!), and then missed out on PC7 (initially) because of email configuration (Neil's email went into a spam folder - #@$!!). I was about to go postal when I was able to purchase some PC7 sets after being put on a wait list (I don't believe the wait lists exit anymore -- have to confirm with Neil).
So now I'm one of the guys that presses refresh on his browser 8,000 times waiting for them to pop up because I am not going to miss 'em again!! Heh.