Agree that HHN trip planning can be obnoxious, but I think that falls squarely on Universal rather than leakers who aren’t beholden to share any information.
The issue is Uni still running the event like it’s locals only despite how much it’s grown nationally/internationally. The announcements often feel haphazard and random, dropped with little fanfare, the ticket options are confusing and unfriendly to guests who want to spend the weekend, etc. Hell, they even got rid of the website in favor of single splash page. For an event that takes so much extra time, effort, design and labor, they wind up marketing HHN the same way Disney does an After Hours event.
The event information timeline just doesn’t line up with HHN's popularity anymore. Out-of-town guests shouldn’t really be expected to have to book now to lock in a decent rate, or even get a room at all, but they are. And they just need to hope their preferred tickets or house lineup or whatever is good enough to not cancel later.
Side note, it’s also why I think it’s funny when people are excited about not “spoiling” the event with a new spec map. One, this isn’t a book or movie, you can’t spoil a marketing campaign. Two, they’re just gonna rattle off like 5-6 announcements with a tweet and a blog post over three weeks in August anyway. It’s not like they’ve ever treat house announcements as sacred lol.