I don't know that anyone can explain anything about this. I chatted up UPS (@UPShelp) on Twitter last night and got a response (posted earlier in this thread) that basically said "we can't tell you what Apple is doing in China", like it's all on Apple - even though according to the UPS site, Apple has handed the phones off to them for delivery. It's scary to think that UPS now has millions of dollars worth of iPhones, and has no clue what's going on.
I had a Thursday delivery scheduled, then it moved to Friday and now it's "scheduled delivery information is not available at this time, please check back later", which appears to be UPS-speak for "we got no freaking clue".
I find it strange that your payment no longer shows... unless it never got past "pending", and the temp hold timed out and fell off.