Yes yes yes.
That bit is obvious. But why not ready up?

It could be because you want to have some more time to think about the orders.

Some of us have jobs businesses spouses children and other responsibilitie. Leaving the check mark grey allows us to know precisely when we need to find time to check in with good old webdiplomacy and avoid nmr's, cd's, and so on.

Also I want to convince Russia that I really am waiting to here from him before I take Sweden.

"GB game"

My first response still stands.

I agree with ishirkmywork. It's not always helpful to have phases ending at random times.

Also, exercising control over phase end is a means of exerting pressure on other players, albeit crude.

Sometimes, I leave the orders as saved rather than just waiting until I am 100% and want to go to ready so that the other players can see that I am thinking deeply about my next move and not just waiting until the last minute because I wasn't checking.

Sometimes, if a player appears to be not trying very hard or distracted by putting in orders at the last minute and the moves aren't so good, the other players will just start attacking them. So I want everyone to know that I am thinking really hard about my moves, I just haven't decided what they will be.

@ishirk - that I get. I have all those things and travel a stupid amount, so I think I'm qualified to comment from that angle. Nothing new there.
@Swordsman - the other comments I had considered... yours is definitely a new one.
The country I am thinking of, in the game that provoked me into print mag indeed be deeply considering his/her moves.
But I ain't helping much. They's getting spanked.

Thanks for comments webdippers.

On a connected note, there's a 10hr GB game starting soon for impatient people like me.

If you want a fast game, play a live one

In live games the problem is worse. 5min is too much for your builds, yet people don't ready up. I don't believe they need a bathroom break every phase.

I alsways wait the whole phase. I can't tell you how many times I've set looking at the map after saving moves with 2 mins left and noticed a mistake or alternative move that actually plays better. If you don't want to wait the full plase play quicker games. Instead of playing 12 hour phases play something you can handle like 6

Yep. I enter first sketch moves immediately as insurance against a phase end I missed. Then I think for real and change and ready up. My grey check moves are usually marginally better than an NMR

I've had it happen in a 24 hour game where I knew that every phase was going to adjudicate at 1pm my time. I entered moves at 10am logged off (i readied) and apparently the last guy readied around 11. The moves adjudicated. I ended up super busy and when I got back to the game it was 1130am the next day. (I assumed I still had til 1pm) but nope NMR.

pretty sure swordsman is russia in http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=200709

or CommanderByron