You people must have never actiavted an iPhone

Sure it's quick-ish, but it takes longer than just two seconds. At the end, you have to wait for a text to be sent to your new phone, thus completing the activation. For the 3G launch, this took days for people. 600,000 pre-orders so far, and more to come. It's going to be a cluster****.
Luckily I'm on the east coast, so I'll try asap.