> From many conversations, and my personal experience, the reliability of prime for two day deliveries has gone way down. It's generally a day or two before the item even ships in my region. Amazon is also failing to handle rampant knock-offs mixed in with legitimate products.

I'm noticing that too. If I'm going to go with standard shipping, they'll wait on it for 2 weeks and then try to ship it the day before the end of the delievery estimation. (I live in Chicago, so theres absolutely no reason to do that other than spite)