Sigh. Lookleft, is it really that hard to understand? If you don't feel up to handling the prevailing conditions for the runway assigned because it's been a long and tiring day then require the less challenging runway option. I'm certainly not going to bag you out for it.
EPIRB, it all comes down to too many aircraft trying to arrive in a given time period. Line controllers can do absolutely nothing about that. I don't know if it's Metron being too optimistic, airlines preferring aircraft in the air so that their departure is logged as "on time" or what. From personal observation the peaks in traffic we were getting previously have been smeared out - the worst delays aren't as long and the peak isn't as intense.