The ability to declare keepers as late as possible (and thus watch more preseason, and get more time for fluke preseason injuries to happen before making your declarations) is much more important than deciding where you're going to draft based on who's available. If deciding your draft spot was a one day affair (or even one weekend affair), we could still keep the keeper declaration late and have the draft decision after that, but it's not. So we either have draft slot decision first, or we move up the date to when you need to declare your keepers to before preseason. I'm sorry, I don't agree that's a fair tradeoff.
I think we've had, maybe, 3 people not select the first available draft spot in the years we've done this. If you think a lot of people are all of a sudden going to be selecting out of order, I think you're quite wrong.
In fact, this is the only league I've been a part of that actually allows you to select your spot. Most just give you the first available slot. Oh, the inhumanity of only knowing for 95% certainty what someones keepers are going to be before you select where you're going to draft.
Eat that cudall!
Let's get this thing going people! Cord needs to know who I'm keeping . . . although it should be obvious to anyone with a second-grade education. 
Derek: It's not about people going out of order. Don't care about that. It's more about someone releasing their top player to the draft because they know they have a pick in the top two or three. For instance, say I lucked out this year and got the first pick. Because I know it beforehand, I can then NOT declare LeBron a keeper and release him to the draft and keep someone else, then turn around and pick him up with the first pick. So I get my top 3 players AND get potentially 3 more years of keeper eligibility with LeBron instead of only one year. If I don't know the draft order, I am forced to keep LeBron and lose him after this year . . . But whatever. I realize it only potentially affects the top few picks, and wouldn't be an issue some years.
Ted, it's amazing how bitter you've remained after finishing 8th and 10th the last couple years. Really, there's nothing to be embarrassed about . . . (this is where I put the smiley emoticon, right?)
