mine shipped today.
i actually dont have much experience ordering from amazon.uk (this is my 3rd order, first was Planet Earth, second was the Batmon anthology br set). but if the uk division is anything like the us one, the shipping estimates are just that - estimates, and almost always are way on the conservative side (its easier to ship early than to be yelled at for being late). ive had some BF amazon US deals ship in 2 days instead of the estimated 2 weeks.
by the way, the us extras are not in hd (either that or the uk are in hd), since new reports from bluray.com forums have been that it was a typo and that the releases are identical.
also, the bitrate hit is actually just speculation, no one has confirmed that, and from reading the review on bluray.com, it was also a wild rumor. the transfer is the same and at optimal quality. the only noticeable difference will be the box, the extra languages and those several lines in subtitles that will be in a different font (oh noez!) in 2 movies.