I'm actually surprised to hear they used to give out gifts you could take with you at Pref--sounds awesome, although I can see where it could get "sticky." When did they stop doing that?
Thanks for all the responses--very interesting to read!
I'm the type of person who doesn't really like "structured fun" (when we were about 9 or so, my mom starting offering my brother and me $100 not to have birthday parties--she hated them, too, and figured she would spend about that much on a party, anyway--and we both happily took her up on it and had 2-3 person sleepovers instead). Anyway, that's probably part of the reason I dislike skits on instinct--they just seem kind of "hokey" and "awkward," to quote other posters. That, and they seem like they'd showcase a small subset of the sisters in a chapter--those who can act or sing--while kind of glazing over everyone else for the night. That said, if they work well for some people and schools, great.
The closest to skits my alma marter got was slide shows set to music on pref night. I only saw ours (I went through Spring COB), but I felt like they generally did pretty good job of capturing the chapter--fun times, friendship, philanthrophy events, and more solemn "deep" times. The potential downside was that sometimes only a few people would submit most of the pictures, and therefore many of the pictures would be of a handful of members.