It's funny, because I actually had this happen exactly once. I had ordered an iPhone 3G for delivery on the first day of its availiability. I was out of the house and rushing back to meet the UPS guy, but missed him. Very disappointed, I called UPS and they said "ok, he will swing back around in 15 minutes, does that work?" I remember being astonished, because as you point out, this never happens. I chalked it up to Apple putting pressure on UPS to deliver all the phones that day. Maybe even providing monetary rewards if over x% of the phones were delivered that day?