Interesting, I always start the shotgun well before I expect dream offers to pan out. I feel that I negotiate and interview best when I have a been interviewing and have offers in hand.

I agree. I think it's common for people to start with the shotgun approach to build confidence interviewing then start sniping a few dream roles as they start to get further along with the shotgun companies

While I do concur with you about negotiating and interviewing best, I like to save shotgun for last because often the interview process from all of those companies slows me down a lot. Especially the companies that give you projects to do :/

While it stinks to feel like you've done worse going for jobs that you really care about, it helps to remind yourself that all companies have communication/social problems that will impede your work. No company is really all that special.

I've only ever landed jobs worth having via the sniper strategy. However, with the ease of passively employing the shotgun approach using a good Linkedin profile, it's definitely worth doing that if only to benchmark the job market a bit.