Yea, nobody had a problem this July either I heard, but that's probably because I wasn't part of the pilot program. I have enough shit to stress over, and just my luck lightning would strike my computer in the middle of the friggin exam... Yea, I agree, save your money and go for the regular route...
Umm, you can start downloading them now I guess, no rush at all really. I think the first deadline I worried about was New Jersey's. The 500 dollar deadline is like March 15th, so I sent mine certified 2 weeks before just to be safe. As for New York, I think you have until 90 days prior (April 28th). And New Yorks pre-bar application is a breezy 4 short pages, took me an hour to fill out. New Jersey's application, that was a couple days, and you have to get a complete driver abrstract from the DMV and some fingerprinting done. So give yourself some time for that one.
off topic, I also went to Rutgers
RUgreek