yeah, they took away our early entry and didn't even replace it with a character bus meet & greet at the hotels (like at WDW)
my opinion is that they won't bring it back here (DL) because of the overhead cost and the financial trouble they are already suffering from DCA. It probably cost quite a bit more dough to open earlier just for a select few
to tell you the truth-i was a bit disappointed with my early entry day a few years back because we didn't realize that most of the park would remain closed anyway. it wasn't worth it to me to get up so early in the morning just to get into fantasyland (i'm not much of a morning person)