Aaaaah! I just checked in the wee hours of the night and saw that I was approved for both the EAC and the I 821 on Jan 14th! Here are my stats so far as I remember:

8/31: Sent my package out to Chicago (?) lockbox from NYC
9/3: My package was sent to the Vermont site.
10/4: Biometric appt (not walk in)
01/14/2013: Approved!

the weird thing is that I did not receive a text even though I opted in for it. Oh well. Hooray! Don't give up hope fellow VT thread kiddos!