I think the reason that no internet access was such a common complaint this year is that it had been promised, and then turned out not to exist. If we knew in advance that the hotel wouldn't have wireless (or would only have dial-up, etc etc), I think we could deal with it
I disagree, strongly. If people want pictures posted during the festivities, we need broadband, for example.
Would anyone disagree with a poll (after dates and cities have been locked in, of course) to find out how many people are planning on attending?
Because of the way the city voting will be set up (Hell yes, I'll go there; Sure, why not; Nope), we should have a tentative, but not baseless, count from the start. The poll-right-before-drop-dead may be useful, but that would depend on the arrangement we have with the hotel, IMO.