Okay.. So to update my getbitcoin fiasco (and to be fair to getbitcoin):

Last night -- 48 hours from the transaction confirmation, almost to the minute -- I finally got notified that the WU transfer was completed. So the good news is, getbitcoin did do the wire transfer and I'm not out (most) of the money.

The interesting news is the cost (other than time): I sold getbitcoin 64 bitcoins. At the time, spot price was $5.15, so that's $329.6, though I only assumed $320 ($5/btc). The $20 was to cover the WU transaction fee. I wanted the $300, and so set the minimum price to $5/btc, thinking that, at a minimum I would get my $300; if the price stayed level for the next 24 hours I would get a few dollars more.

The email I received from getbitcoin said they sold my bitcoins at $5.24, which would have been $335.36.

They paid me $275!

So, factoring out the $20 Western Union fee, the spread between the market value of my bitcoins and what they paid me for my bitcoins ended up being $40.36. The raw cost for the transaction was $60.36 -- that's a 20% transaction cost, though in fairness to getbitcoin, they have no control over Western Union's fees (and WU is infamous for it's usurious fees). However, even subtracting their fees, getbitcoin charged 13.4% to handle the transaction. A transaction that was fraught with screw ups.