i'm on the same boat, pal. but i have somewhat of an interesting story:
last year the day I received the e-mail stating that my ECA was ready, I totaled up 415 points. Went online to update my profile and there was a draw held, 413. I missed the ITA by a matter of hours.
the only way for me to upgrade my score was to get my wife to take the IELTS and ECA. as she was swamped with work before, and she'd need to study for the exams, we decided to postpone it. Back in September we finally took the IELTS and her ECA was underway. Our score went up to 441 whilst waiting for her ECA report, due a couple of weeks later. In the midst of all this? A 442 points draw. Missed ITA by 1 point.
Now her ECA is complete, our score is currently 449 and we finally have had a draw with our capped score. Missed the ITA by the cut-off time.
It's getting frustrating. I'll lose 5 points in mid-December