TPM, I think one thing about any '09s committing a year early while many '08s haven't yet been offered is simply that the '09s who're being given the opportunity to commit a year early are the very best of the best players out there. All across the country, the number of players who get the chance to commit a year early and who do so, is a very small pool of players.
When the very top players from a given graduation year play in the "right" summer tournaments and also have the benefit of playing on a quality high school team, they tend to get noticed way ahead of other players from their class, or even the classes ahead of them. I know that some people won't agree with me, but playing in the Jr. Olympics, the Perfect Game/WWBA tournaments at East Cobb, the Area Code Games, Summer Series, Sunbelt Classic, Connie Mack World Series, Jupiter, etc. etc. all go a long ways toward playing in front of the people who make decisions about who is going to get scholarship offers and those who aren't. When a kid who plays on our teams gets recruited by schools in the SEC, ACC or soutwest or other regions of the country, it's no mystery to me where these coaches saw the kids perform to know what type of player they are. Many travel teams play a major portion of their schedule in venues a long way from home, in front of large numbers of college coaches. The players on those teams tend to be the ones who all the top coaches know about early.