Will,
 Regarding the 2nd part of your question, we are coordinating with Dave Helms at NWS/OM and Carl Bullock and others here at FSL who work w/ AWIPS to get 40km RUC grids out w/ the IBM SP version of the RUC. Dave is coordinating bandwidth issues. If there are bandwidth problems with the full 40km 25 mb isobaric data (6.5 MB / output time), our compromise position is that at least we should send out sfc, precip, and other 2-d grids at 40km res. I think Dave knows quite well that the field wants higher-res data from the RUC and Eta, but you could always have your region reiterate this requirement to him at david.helms@noaa.gov.

We have also set up the SP version of the RUC to make 80km and 40km data available as each model output time is available, rather than in a burst after the model is done. Hopefully that will also make the higher-res RUC data more palatable for AWIPS and SBN.

Stan