I removed FAH2 from my projects, because their deadlines are too short for me.

I have one 8 core machine running 24/7 which runs this project exclusively. The only pain in the neck was getting the initial queue cleared. I figured that once the deadline for those units hit 24 hours or less, it would start those units, which it did. It is true that the 24 hour deadline pretty much pre-empts everything else until the "everything else" is done. The difference in the three kinds of unit running is not a problem for me because I am running 24/7. The 50000 step units take about 9 hours, the 30000 step units take about 5 hours and the 10000 step units take about 1.5 to 2 hours. Because the machine is only allocated 8 units at any one time there is no learning curve for BOINC to adjust queue lengths based on run time. All the units are always running with nothing in the queue. The 24/7 set up works for this project on this machine. If I had a slower machine or did not run 24/7, I would not run this project at all. So, having the correct project on the correct machine is essential for this project. I also think that unless you tweak the config settings to limit a project, this should be an exclusive project for a machine.
Cheers

The high priority bit completely throws a 1 day work queue out of whack. The CPUs I'm running on are fast enough I don't THINK I've had any late WUs, but the potential is certainly there.

Also, having spent time in mainframe operations, it reminds me too much of uppity programmers who think the world revolves around their mainframe jobs. (it never does)

Same here. I have a dual boot windows/linux machine. And sometimes WU's just can't be calculated in time. 24h is not enough. Sorry.