magicard - thanks i spoke to an IO and she mentioned that my case was approved yesterday and the approval notice was mailed out.
nemo7 - yes, when I called NSC, she confirmed that my case was approved. then i had my wife call NSC too and she also spoke to an IO who confirmed the same.
guess there are only 2 possible scenarios for all of us who spoke to the IOs today and got verbal approvals:
scenario 1: the IO was being truthful and we are approved. the system is possibly down for maintenance, etc and hence the status is not being reflected online.
scenario 2: the IO was not being truthful - they must be getting irritated with the sheer volume of calls that they are receiving. hence, they are just telling the caller that they are approved. this way they close the call and get back to whatever it is that they were doing.
one way or the other, we will find out towards the end of this week: either by online approvals or snail mail approvals.