<...snipped...>

From a timeliness perspective you are absolutely correct. However, that's not the point. M$ promised the SP's on CD delivered automatically when the Enterprise edition card was sent in and they haven't delivered on that promise.

>From a timeliness perspective, I'd grab stuff off the Web. By the time I got SP1 in my MSDN update, SP2 was available for download from the Web site. Since I can let the computer download the file(s) while I (in theory at least) sleep, I find it to be easier to grab things off the Web as they become available.