Well, I just took the plunge and tried to apply for the 50k personal Visa. After over 2 minutes of processing, I got to step 3. It really bothered me that I wasn't instantly approved, and the process seemed to take longer than usual. I got the 50k personal Visa/Amex combo back in June of 2012, and both cards are still open.

So I called the reconsideration line and was told their computers are offline. She said that she could not look up my application, and I was probably not even assigned an application number because of the system issues. Finally, she said the application would automatically be processed when the system was back up.

I applied around 12:45 pm CDT. She hoped that the application system would be back up around 2 pm CDT today.

So if you want instant approval, it may be good to wait a couple of hours. Until the application system is back up, you would probably get a message that the app needs further processing.