As someone who has ordered a few kits recently, with another in the pipeline, I can attest to the immense power of seeing the weekly update on shipping. Even if it is only the 'Last Updated' date on the page that changes with no kit dates changing it has a powerful effect.
Whether this is accurate or not I found myself checking daily, on the off chance of a pleasant surprise, but Thursday Evening / Friday AM (UK) was always a big occasion as that seemed to be when the update was most likely to happen.
Now here is the interesting part, and its almost certainly a pavlovian response, but I know full well that if my kit was shipping I would see emails from the courier. I am not going to find out my kit has shipped by looking at the shipping page. What that page is actually for is to tell me whether or not my order is likely to be reached in the next batch. It tells me whether I should start crossing my fingers, getting excited and hoping to see that email from the courier...
The date creeping towards my order date lets me start looking forward to christmas coming... If the last updated date does not get updated on a weekly basis I don't know whether to be optimistic or resigned... But when it gets close - oh boy does that make the next week exciting!
Bill