
Wow - thank you!
Ooh! Ooh! Do you have a pic you can post here? I'm impressed - nobody even noticed my shirts (but then they were hidden under three layers of clothing most of the time cuz it was so dang cold!).
I think I'm beginning to figure this out....
1) Part of it is as FigmentFan814 says - thanks to the new Celebrate! campaign, they seem to be reducing the amount of special shwag and increasing the amount of ho-hum, cheap-o "shwag" you have to PAY for, like the new crummy Celebrate! trinkets and cardboard Princess/Pirate loaf cakes.
For instance, we discovered that the free-cookies-for-honeymooners policy at Sunshine Seasons has been discontinued.

It's prolly because now, thanks to the marketing campaign, nearly everybody who comes to WDW will be celebrating something...
2) As for free desserts, the pattern I noticed is that we only got free desserts at Signature Restaurants. I won't spoil the nominal surprise by tellling you how many we ended up getting, but let's just say I was glad we like to eat at Signature Restaurants. Regular sit-down restaurants (basically the ones that only require 1 Table Service Credit on the Dining Plan) and in-park places like Liberty Tree Tavern, Nine Dragons, and even the Brown Derby gave us nuthin', despite our shameless campaigning...
But this is only a theory - I've heard of people scoring free desserts at these places before. Maybe it's more to do with the Celebrate! campaign....