I picked mine up last night. Best Buy did a great job at organizing the pickup at my location. Easily over 100 folks. You could browse and buy accessories and games early, pay for everything including the system, wait in line again, then just wait in line until Midnight, when they just started throwing systems at everyone!!
I got there around 11:45, was out by 12:17, and I was towards the end of the line, so they moved it quickly!
Only bad thing about getting there so late is a lot of the games were wiped out, so I didn't get the ones I wanted yet.
The lines and demand were more than I expected, honestly.
Other random impressions:
--Really like the new Dual Shock!
--Patching actually didn't take me too long at all
--Couldn't log into PSN. Tried for around half an hour.
--Other than perhaps the dual-shock, there was nothing at all 'exciting' about this system launch for me. While I expected this, and it may be more of where I am as a video gamer than what Sony is offering, it was still a little disappointing. Glad I got one for the family for the holidays, but last night felt more like an errand than anything else.