buy a cheaper ticket or something (maybe earlier flights were sold) for late in the day.

Work finishes early. Head to airport mid day. If there is an empty seat you can get yourself home quickly. Aside from convenience sometimes if you know weather is going to roll in during the evening you can try to get yourself out early again (I use this a lot when I have to travel from SFO and I know it is going to be a mess by mid day or so)

Especially if you are not a 1k (and thus can't pay the same day confirmed change fee because you don't want to), standby was a great tool. Now that you have to pay for it too, I'm not sure how often I'll use it when I fall from 1k.