Frankly, one shouldn't encourage such behavior by actually covering it. But if I were in Manhattan--instead of Austin, Texas--I, too, would have interviewed them in person by now.
The queue outside of Apple's Fifth Avenue store, covered first by GearDiary and then Engadget, apparently hasn't been formed by iPhone co-dependents, though.
It is instead made up of a group of people who may want to 1) set a world's record for standing in line to buy a product and 2) have a social-agricultural-political message they want the world to hear. However, it was difficult from the video interview on Engadget to determine what the group actually stands for.
On Saturday, the Apple 2.0 blog seemed to get further with the group's agenda. The group, which started off with about 10 on Friday and was slimmed down to 5 by Saturday morning after a night of rainfall, apparently supports organic farming and sustainability for the planet. According to Apple 2.0, they may be interested in turning the White House Lawn into an organic garden and they may be planning to buy iPhones for the presidential nominees.
The seemingly ad hoc group is certainly savvy in deciding to use the iPhone 3G to garner some publicity. However, to be perfectly honestly, most mainstream journalists feel more comfortable interviewing gadget nuts rather than alternative souls hoping to use the media to change the world.
