Welcome, bglolli, and thanks for that.
Along those lines, I just posted the
Unused Whitney Permits numbers for 2017. It shows how many permits were left each day last year AFTER all the walk-in requests were fulfilled. You can see there are many days with unused permits.
One correction to your post: There is no advantage to arriving at the Visitor Center early, as they have all the people at the door take a number, and then the lowest numbers get first chance asking for any available permits.
