[scootklein]

I'm even convinced that updates are processed programatically in many cases, and that a human doesn't even see it if it marches certain criteria.

We ran a website that let users create their own iPhone apps so bugfixes to the platform required 55+ apps to be rebuilt and resubmitted at the same time. Emails for all 55 apps would come in at the same time every time they changed state (30 or so seconds to receive all 55) and was very consistent through all of our updates.

FWIW, some more anecdotal evidence

1) after the switch to 4.0, updates to my apps that added background audio and support for the high res screen were through in 2 days. during this same period, normal bug fixes took around 12 calendar days

2) just updating images and names can take upwards of 3 weeks for non-popular apps (you think it'd be the opposite)