I went to nationals for the first time in 2013; skipped last year, and am on board for NYC this summer
I'm also antsy for the REAL schedule with times and dates, and not just the list of workshops.
There's so much variety of what to see there, so depends what you want! My personal opinion is to give preference to writing craft sessions over something like an author panel. Author panels can be fun, but you're probably not going to *learn* much unless it's a favorite author and you really want to fangirl out or something. Or it's Saturday afternoon and your brain shut down. I attended a character crafting workshop by two authors who had advice I'd never heard before; stuff that was specific to "this is what my manuscript was like before I sold, and this was what I worked on and added to get it sold." Really specific ways to enhance the romance of the story and the characters.
I want my money to go toward things like that instead of sitting through a social media panel where someone asks whether Facebook is better than twitter and if blogs are dead. You can find that answer on your own honestly (and if you're here in this forum, you already know there's no one magic social media to sell books for you).
The publisher spotlights can be really helpful if you're looking to sub to a house. They tell you exactly what they're looking for and what's selling. At a smaller RWA conf I went to a spotlight and pitched to the editor while we waited for the room to open. I didn't even mean to, we were just chatting and she asked what I wrote.
