haughtney1 it's a bit more complicated then that. MAESTRO looks out to 2 and a half hours (I think, we don't use anything like that sort of lead time) but the sequence is subject to change until very close in. The sequence is sort of finalised at 250 miles ish but a short flight departing just ahead of you will still be placed in front of you. There is a point at which your position in the sequence is locked in, but for PH and I think the east coast as well that is set very close in (15 minuted rings a bell?).
Obviously long distance international flights would prefer that to be much longer, short range domestic wouldn't, and I guess there are more of them than you.
This means that the point at which we issue a FF becomes a trade off between giving as much notice as possible and waiting for a time that won't change much. Thats why for PH we use the system WhisprSYD described.
With regard to estimates, MAESTRO works on TAAATS estimates, which frankly for aircraft on descent aren't that good. They are based on miles to run, flight planned TAS, forecast winds and a table of standard descent profiles. For an international heavy, particularly an Airbus, the system estimate can easily be 4-5 early. So despite sitting in front of millions of dollars worth of computers that have been tracking each aircraft for hours, we still ask every aircraft for an estimate for the FF. Sometimes those estimates aren't that good either which leads to other problem as already alluded to.
Edited to add: PH still sets a max delay for flights form Africa and the Middle East to 5 minutes, but obviously AD and the east coast don't.