My vegetarian meals almost always come through on transcons and TATL flights, and I usually book through continental.com. As for notifications, it took me a while to get them to stop because they would keep calling the home number when a return flight was delayed. Mrs. SilverGoat was not amused.

Also had the same notification problem with the few tickets that I booked through Orbitz, which I only use when I book an exquisitely complicated route with mixed carriers.

-Goat