I can understand your frustration Bonitanita the wait times in late Feb, March, April, May and some of June were ridiculous. I honestly would not wish that chaos on anybody and as bad as the comparison is between now and back then, in reality 30 days for 1st stage approval sounds pretty swift and fair, now 3 days is electric. It does go to show how quick it can be done and they probably look at the file for about 1 hour in the 1st stage.
What I am very curious to see though is......... All these uber fast 1st stage approvals, will just bottle neck at the relevant VO's and may sit a lot longer than what the earlier 2012 applicants had to wait. I will be curious to see in June, if December has been processed at the relevant VO's OR as I suspect what may happen, they just sit there gathering dust as their is not enough IO's to process so many applicants that have sped through stage 1. I guess time will tell.