So there's a little disagreement on the guided tour announcements but a consensus on redeyes: max announcements on the ground, shut up in flight.

I think most pilots know to shut up on redeyes so if you are getting a long-winded dissertation it's probably because the pilot has adjusted his work/rest schedule so well he/she has forgotten what time of day it is!

As for delay information, we understand that you want as much info as possible and hopefully crews are providing it. What you have to keep in mind is that, in spite of what I know to be true in my own mind, pilots are NOT all-seeing pillars of aviation knowledge! When a fleet of emergency vehicles goes zooming past your window on the way to the end of 22L you say to yourself, "I wonder what's up?" At the same time the pilots are looking at each other saying, "I wonder what's up?" We are at the mercy of other agencies (ATC and CO operations mainly) when it comes to getting information about events on the airport or in the air traffic system. We can make some educated guesses but we wait for verification from outside sources before passing on information. As you can imagine, the volume of radio traffic goes way up at places like EWR when the weather is bad or an aircraft has an emergency situation or just during the normal high traffic times. If every jet that just switched over to ground control or tower started asking questions about delays it would only further aggravate the situation (and if they get your callsign will result in another 5 airplanes getting put in front of you!) So we wait patiently for information from outside sources (all of whom have higher priority duties than relaying delay causes to us) and pass it on as soon as we can. Hopefully no one is outright lying to you but I know ATC and the weather have made a liar out of me on numerous occasions. Typically it is one of these two situations:
ATC: "expect to wait another 20 minutes your expected release time is XX."
ME on the PA: "we are expecting to sit here another 20 minutes before be released for takeoff."
(3 seconds elapsed time)
ATC: "you are released, cleared for takeoff."
ME: doh!

or
ME on the PA: "we have reached our cruising altitude and are expecting a smooth ride so I'm turning off the fasten seat belt sign..."
The Weather: moderate turbulence the instant the fasten seat belt sign hits the off position
ME: doh!
(many of us refer to the fasten seat belt sign as the "turbulence ON switch")

Here's my question for you, would you like updates every 10 minutes even if there is no new information? I know the captains I fly with have multiple schools of thought on this issue so on one flight you get constant updates and on another you get none.

ps. this is great info, I have already thought of several ways I can adjust my PAs and processes to make this flying thing a better deal for all of us.