Good news everyone....
I got my trade-in gift card Sunday morning. No issues, full $200 for my old i4 running ios6. It took 20 days from dropping in the mailbox, to e-gift-card.
Hope this might ease the fear of those that read the Verizon forums and got scared from the vocal majority over there.
I suppose this also means I can bolt from the Verizon order if a phone pops up locally, BUT, according to the spreadsheet, iPhone 6 64GB SG's are shipping from orders one day behind mine. Should be any day now.