This is semi-relevant. 'cause it relates to people dropping. Also I forgot to reply to this.

[quote=Dervish]
reservations snip way back on page 1
[/quote]

It's not that complicated at all, actually. 

From my experience on RP gateway (where this practice is fairly prominent) reserving slots is just like an interest check phase over here. As you probably know, the transition from interest check/reservation to OOC will cause you to lose at least 30% of those who expressed interest or made a reservation. 50% on gateway because it's an even more anonymous clusterfuck due to it's organisational structure. However, with reservations, you actually block other people from taking those slots, causing them to stumble upon your RP, get excited, see reservations, leave because it's full and then never ever return. tl;dr You're effectively dropping a plan B when your plan A has a high chance of failure. Which IMHO is kinda failing GM 101; recruitment is a number's game.