I've had good luck with lost stuff:

1) left my iPod on an AUS-DFW fight (and didn't realize I'd left it there). About 20 minutes before boarding my connection, I get paged to the gate. Smug in my self-assurance that I'd just gotten an op-upgrade, the agent hands me the phone, at the other end of which is the GA from my arrival gate, asking me to come back and get the iPod. It was a long run from A twenty-something to C7, but well worth it.

2). My wife, travelling by herself on an award ticket issued on my miles, left a book on a flight back to AUS. She had no idea she'd forgotten it. About an hour after picking her up at the airport, I got a call on my cell phone from the AUS baggage office asking me to come by and pick up the book.

Moral of the story: You'd be amazed at how often things turn up. Have faith.