ok, so i've been away a few days and breezed through this topic...apologies if i miss and/or repeat anything here.
first, i find it just wonderful that a couple of the HD3 naysayers decry the limit on AP as limiting their strategy are the same folks who told me 'enjoy the trophy, you are a chump coach who needs socialist help to win' when i used the strategy of maxing AP with a lot of scholarships to land a top recruit at cornell in knight last season. seriously, nothing can be done to satisfy some folks. why are they still here?
that said...
i'm also in smith, dealing with EEs in HD3 for the first time in reality and not just abstract. it is really rough. i had 3 EEs. i planned multiple backups who were "late" or "whenever" preferences, stretching the APs i had to my 3 open scholarships in the first session (imagine trying to do this if you had 1 open, and then 3 EEs! impossible!). but none of them worked out--they all signed right away or really early in the 2nd session. as has been said, when recruits sign in the first cycle in session 2, you are just hosed and wasted your APs entirely. and then you have to find new backups, and it's a sad cycle of wasted APs on guys who sign before you can even spend your money. to me, a signing-free cycle or two is a MUST.