Great news: we just completed our landing today! Our passports made it from Ottawa to Vancouver in less than 24 hours, so we decided to get it over with and immediately drove down to the border (Peace Arch in BC).
In case it helps others, a couple of notes for future reference:
- I was sure that Xpresspost envelopes require a signature upon delivery. They don't, apparently -- our mailman just left it in our mailbox. You might want to be extra-vigilant once your tracking is activated; I know it's not common for stuff to be stolen from mailboxes, but still. You wouldn't want that to be the moment when you lose your passport.
- The wait on the American side (to get the flagpole slip of paper they produce, which the Canadian officers require) took longer than the actual landing: we spent almost an hour at the very busy US facility at Peace Arch (even though it was early afternoon on a weekday), but only about 35 minutes, start to finish, on the Canadian side. Very nice people and a smooth experience overall.
Once again, good luck to everyone still waiting for good news! I sure had my doubts about EE, and I won't become a fan of Harper/Alexander anytime soon, but for our family this was a pretty amazing upgrade compared to the previous system.
I probably won't be following this thread as closely in the future, but feel free to PM me if anyone has any questions!
my ecas shows application received still 
