Footage was often shot earlier than the actual taping and then inserted at the proper time during taping. 

Interesting.  I guess that is the first time I really noticed it.  I mean it's pretty obvious that some exteriors were filmed  (Roger's car, etc.), but with things like the flames burning up Bathia Mapes appearing to the left of her before  quickly moving  to cover her, and most if not all of the Dream sequences ending on camera lingering on the something the dreamer sees to allow the actor run back to be their bedroom set in time to wake up screaming, I got the impression that just about everything was written, blocked and preformed so that everything was done in real time.

You say that it often happened?  Could you perhaps point to some other instances?

Oh don't take what I said as a criticism. I know what it's like to not want to wait. But I think MPI is shooting themselves in the foot over this. If I ran a store and people wanted a particular item I would try to stock as many as I could and I would not try to deny anyone that product who was willing to pay for it just because they didn't belong to some nit club. They probably think the interest will be just as stong in a year as it is now, maybe it will be. In fact it probably will be. But this kind of thing just sets my teeth on edge.

Oh, no, I don't take it that way at all!  In fact, ITA that MPI is shooting itself in the foot, but who knows, perhaps their marketing arm thinks they will get more return on their investment.

SFX question: In episode 631, when Chris visits Blair to ask about his murdered brother, said brother Tom the vampire had in fact been reanimated (this time in a plaid flannel shirt rather than the far sexier blood red shirt he had on when he was sucking on Julia) and is standing outside the window of Blair's house.  How was this acheived?  Did the director have some video footage pre-recorded to dump in a the correct time?  Because ISTR in that scene, we see an exterior of Tom  coming up to the window, cut to Blair looking surprised, cut to an interior shot of Tom looking in the window, with blair and Chris talking offscreen, then a cut to a two shot of Blair and Chris on the set and Blair walking to the window.

The shots of the window (inside and out) look like they were recorded on an empty set and I remember the pacing was such that it was not possible for Don to run back and forth to play both parts!

Nope. I mean that in Ep #693 they actually set the drapes on fire in a duplicate set of Stokes' room and shot it as if the fire was in the same set as Thayer David was.

Ah, yes, I remember now.  I just watched that ep not too long ago.  I need to check that again.

Dave:  Okay, Sam, enough is enough.  Spit it out.

It never fails to astound me that whenever a fire was required in a scene on DS, a real fire was actually started in the studio (often on a duplicate set).

Do you mean a live fire on a blue screen set to be added to the action as required?

Burke became so bored by Vicki and Dr. Woodard's seemingly endless droning analysis of things that he drifted away and began to imagine that his hand was "THE CLAW! THE CLAW!"