Very strange, my uptime went a bit up in the last days. So I encountered the exact contrary phenomenon.
Your uptime SHOULD go up "a bit" over a period of a few days, right? And asymptotically approach 99.99%.
My question is, how do you know if you've missed a forge you were supposed to do in a cycle of 101 blocks?
A delegate slate is 303 bytes, a slate ID is an 8 byte hash of those 303 bytes. The fewer unique combinations of delegates the fewer 303 byte hashes.
Your wallet will allow you to "follow" as many delegates / non-delegates as you like and will combine the slates of all delegates, rank the delegates with the votes from those you are following and then select the top 101. A delegate approved by the most others is most likely to be included in the top of your list.