Hi Dogboy,
I agree with all you've said especially the point about needing to have a sales order confirmed immediately. In our current client we have 24 hours to send an order acknowledgement so lots of time to (under strategy 40) save the sales order, run MPS/MRP, level load in CM25, run V_V2 and get a confirmed date to the customer.
I generally work with clients who are considered small to medium sized so they either don't have the budget to implement APO or they have failed to implement it properly to make use of Global ATP.
Best regards,
Ann