Ah yes, I remember them well....
For those new to the boards, about 3 years ago the highlight of October was the release of LE250 pins featuring Jessica and Tinker Bell dressed as other Disney characters or in Halloween costume. And for good measure they would occasionally throw Stitch into the mix. The howlings you often hear while online were the appreciation of the ravening hoard of anxious pin purchasers and the agonized screams of their wallets and soon to be liquid puddles of plastic, credit cards.
Ah good times, good times....
Sadly the abuses of some resulted in several backlashes.
1) After watching a few deep pocketed resellers purchase all the pins for later resale online, Disney instituted the first great check, Limits of 1-3 per customer.
2) For a time, Disney actually made you CALL their customer service line to place the order directly. (At least until we overloaded that exchange and overwhelmed their cast members.).
3) The Tinker Bell pins went missing. Scheduled to release a set of pins featuring Tinker Bell dressed as Lilo, Mary Poppins, Aurora, The Queen of Hearts, and Maleficent, the big weekend came but the pins never appeared. This was following an earlier missed Tinker Bell release featuring Tink and New York state. About this time Disney then changed to their current (vastly inferior) mailing service. Although the events appear to be unrelated on the fan side, one can't help but wonder......