Well shoot you,it appears you are the one side stepping the issue,some of these shift times you refer to are in fact at my unit,official start times for the N shift,we have a variety of differing N's,to do precisely what is wanted by management and customer,that is to have staff available to match the traffic.I have said recently,that what may have happened in the past is all but finished in todays area units and given the increasing traffic levels and requirement to have more sectors open during N ops,any 'perks' as you perceive are going going gone.I don't know where you work,but as somebody who sits in front of a radar,I can assure you,when there is a busy eastbound flow through the night,is it not better for everybody concerned to have staff as well rested as can be before dealing with this workload,precisely at the time when the body feels least like doing it.As a proportion of staffing,it is well documented that N's are very efficient in the numbers of staff rostered versus the traffic loadings,any less and there would be delays through the night as well,and of course what you won't realise is that staff on N's make great efforts to attend even when on occasions not feeling at their best,because you know that there is nobody else to call on and you don't want to stuff your colleagues.