Well, the problem hasn't been that everyone is a stranger, just that it's followed a now-a-bit-sickening routine: characters meet at Three Broomsticks. They head to London on the Hogwarts Express, stay at the Leaky Cauldron for the night, and [i]then[/i] take a ferry across the Channel into France, where the rest of the game begins. So far none of the games have made it past step three (though Guildfall didn't help matters). 

I'm just saying we should skip all of that altogether, use the OOC to develop established rapport (or otherwise) between the characters, and throw them into the thick of things immediately.